


Like Clockwork

by agentmoppet



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Banter, Bickering, Blow Jobs, Case Fic, Community: hd_erised, Curse Breaker Draco Malfoy, Dream Spells, Drinking, M/M, Memory Loss, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Miscommunication, Pining, RST, Switching, UST, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unspeakable Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-01-29 08:28:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12627042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentmoppet/pseuds/agentmoppet
Summary: Draco has never been very good at trusting others, and Potter is no exception. But if they're going to survive this, they need to accept that they're holding each other's lives in their hands, and--worst of all--they're going to have to work together.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oceaxe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceaxe/gifts).



> As always with gift fics, I've reached the end and hit pure panic mode hoping that it's ticked all the boxes for my giftee. I really hope you like this, oceaxe! I tried to make it match everything you enjoy (most of all, I was aiming for UST/RST, emotional pining and intricate magic) and I soooo hope it hit the mark for you or that you at least find something in it you enjoy.
> 
> Massive thanks to D and B for betaing it, particularly as it turned out far longer and more complicated than I expected...

When Draco found out that Harry Potter had become an Unspeakable, he hurled three bottles of Chateau Mouton at the wall and set his curtains on fire.

“Are you telling me,” he breathed, trying to regain hold of his sanity, “that Harry _fucking_ Potter, Boy Idiot, Imbecile Who Lived, had the audacity to actually grow a brain? Are you telling me that not only did he crawl his way out of that team of over-glorified scrappers, but he also managed to secure a position that is widely regarded as the most prestigious and intriguing title one can hold?”

“Draco,” Pansy drawled, summoning a new bottle and uncorking it with a faint pop. “Don’t you think you’re too old for these childish tantrums?”

No, he was not too old. Not when the catalyst in question had the ability to regress him right back to the age of eleven without even being present. How dare Potter even _suggest_ that he was more than just a brute with an overabundance of luck? How dare he prove he was capable of more than blindly pointing his wand at targets and exploding things at will?

This was not fair. This was unjust. This was… This was… bloody sexy, if Draco was honest with himself, and that just made him madder.

He doused the flames with a poorly aimed Aguamenti, soaking the walls and half the window, and held his glass out for Pansy to pour him a new drink.

When he had calmed down enough to speak without ranting, he asked her how she’d learned the news.

“I was searching for something for Millicent’s boys for Christmas,” she said. “You know how I like to get my shopping out of the way early. So, I went by that Weasley shop in Diagon.” She smirked suddenly, hiding it with her glass. “I was a smidge before opening time, it turns out, but they’d forgotten to lock the door on their little pre-work celebration. They were quite abashed when they realised I was there, but the cat was already out of the bag, so to speak.”

“The shop,” Draco breathed, barely listening.

He tuned out of the rest of Pansy’s anecdote about how busy Diagon Alley had been and how dreadful the general public were by way of sound and smell, and began his plans for the following morning. If he’d bothered to notice the way that Pansy was smirking at him, he might have realised he had quite probably walked right into a suspicious trap, but by that point, even he would have acknowledged that the damage was done.

There was just something about Potter that managed to rile Draco up like nothing else, and it didn’t help that he’d only gotten hotter since leaving Hogwarts. There was something uniquely infuriating about a man who had the audacity to walk around looking like sex on legs, whilst possessing the most intolerable personality Draco had ever had the misfortune to come across. Still, he supposed it was better than if Potter had both good looks and an attractive personality. At least this way, Draco remained mostly unbothered.

“Sickle for your thoughts?” Pansy asked, smiling at him over the rim of her glass.

“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Draco drawled, draining his glass and summoning the bottle to pour another. “You put them there deliberately, after all.”

Pansy only laughed.

*

Draco pushed open the door to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes and winced as the gigantic pumpkin above the archway screeched like a cat.

“Welcome!” George Weasley appeared from behind a stack of spinning wheels, the smile falling off his face when he made eye contact with Draco. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want, Malfoy?”

“And hello to you too,” Draco sneered. “Don’t worry—I’m just browsing. No need to stretch your conversation skills.”

Weasley snorted. “Wouldn’t dream of it. My tongue would probably drop off if I tried to speak fluent ponce. Don’t touch the squid display.” He pointed to something bright red in the corner that jiggled ominously. “It bites.”

“Squids don’t bite—” Draco began, alarmed, and then forced the thought aside. “Fine.”

He really did need something for the children, and damned if he was going to be outdone by Pansy’s electric eel, whatever the hell that was. But aside from the gift-hunting, Pansy had told him she had heard Potter mention, offhand, that he would be back tomorrow to help unpack the new stock.

He walked off to the other end of the store and began to pick up objects at random, searching for something that Millicent’s two demons might enjoy for several minutes before they broke it. As he searched, he listened. The faint sounds of laughter from the back of the shop reached his ears, and he _knew_ he could hear Potter amongst it.

Draco tried to focus on the words, but he was too far away. All he could hear was laughter, and it made him grit his teeth and nearly walk out the door. He managed to stop himself and instead walked closer to the counter, pretending to eye some enchanted pigmy puff toys.

“Does that mean you’re going to be an aloof wanker now?”

Draco heard Ron Weasley’s voice clearly, and he fought back a sneer.

“Or will you give us a few stories here and there? Go on, I’m your best mate. You can’t go all ‘Unspeakable Tosspot’ on me.”

“Unspeakable tosspot?” Potter snorted, and Draco edged closer. “Is that the best you’ve got? You ought to be more worried about the uninhibited access I have to surveillance spells now, mate.”

Ron’s laughter stopped abruptly. “Wait, what?”

“Didn’t think of that, did you— oi, is that Malfoy?”

Draco froze and tried to look like he very obviously wasn’t listening, which he very obviously was. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Potter emerge from the back room and come to stand in front of him on the other side of the counter. He pasted a politely curious expression on his face and looked up. It nearly fell off his face in dismay when he realised that Potter—the _nerve_ of him—was even more attractive up close than Draco remembered.

“Potter. Fancy seeing you here,” he drawled. “How is life? Still kicking around with the other Ministry brutes, are you? Sorry—Aurors.”

Potter didn’t move a muscle during Draco’s speech. He merely raised one eyebrow and waited.

“Nice try, Malfoy,” he said with a faint sneer. “Parkinson was in here yesterday, and I’m sure you two have had a nice little chat since then. What do you want?”

Draco lifted a shoulder, picking up one of the pigmy puff toys and examining it. “Just doing a spot of shopping. You’re here on official Auror business? Or is it strictly civilian today?”

“Cut the crap. You know what I am now.”

Draco feigned surprise. “Do I? How did I manage that?” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “And shouldn’t that information be a little more… unspeakable?”

Ron pushed his way through the beaded curtains that marked the staff area. His face was contorted into a mutinous expression. “Shove off, Malfoy,” he snapped, dropping the half-open package he’d been sorting onto the counter. “You heard it from Parkinson and you’re here to be a nosy git. Harry might not be an Auror anymore, but I am, and if you don’t piss off, I’ll book you for harassment.”

“Do we need you to swear an Oath?” Potter asked, one eyebrow raised. “We didn’t realise Parkinson had heard anything, or we’d have made her swear one too.”

“Please.” Draco rolled his eyes. “Spare me the melodrama.”

Ron snorted. “Us? Melodrama? We all swore an oath.”

Draco’s eyebrows lifted in genuine surprise, but before he could say anything, Potter interrupted.

“Sorry, Malfoy.” The grimace on his face almost did look apologetic. “I am going to need the two of you to swear it—it’s policy. Do you think Parkinson could come by in—”

Several things happened very suddenly, and Draco found himself abruptly thrown across the room. He swore violently, throwing aside the toy which had reacted to his sudden alarmed grip by covering him in bright pink dust, and stumbled to his feet, trying to process what had happened. Potter was casting shield charms over everything; a tall, willowy woman had appeared from the back room and was speaking rapidly into a tiny rectangle; and—

At the sight of Ron lying unconscious on the floor, Draco forgot his irritation and switched immediately into work mode. He took one look at the exploded package—the one Ron had dropped onto the counter only moments before—then covered it in a number of protective and diagnostic charms.

He waited until Potter had finished securing the area, then told him, “It’s a hellfire curse. Likely the only one, since they always set each other off when they’re in close proximity.”

“How can you tell?” Potter asked, staring down at Ron who was now being tended to by his brother and the willowy lady.

With a small pop, two mediwizards Apparated in, and Potter visibly relaxed.

“Faint orange hue to the catalyst.” Draco pointed at the parcel. “Explosion sounded like it went off in an anechoic chamber. Faint taste of sulphur in the air. It’s a standard curse, Potter. He’ll be all right.”

Draco looked at Potter properly then, for the first time, and he was thrown by the strength of the bitterness he saw there. Potter was staring at the package without moving, his eyes lost in thought. Had Potter always looked like that? In school, he’d always seemed to take an attack like a personal challenge, rising to meet it and all that Gryffindor rot. Potter didn’t look like a Gryffindor right now; he looked jaded and full of harsh edges.

Then he looked up, and it was gone, leaving Draco to wonder if he’d imagined it.

“We’ll take him in now, Auror Potter.” One of the mediwizards looked up while the other transfigured a stretcher out of one of the pieces of foam in their pack. “Looks like a bad Stun at this point. There’s no indication of head trauma or other damage from what we can tell.”

Potter nodded, and they Disapparated. That must be how they were playing it—Potter’s been promoted in the Auror team. Less fieldwork, higher duties. No one needs to know. Surely, he had to understand that word would get out. Word already _had_ got out.

Draco felt a strange surge of emotion. He thought it might be guilt.

“Listen, Potter,” he began, but Potter brushed him aside.

“Forget it, Malfoy. Just, maybe try to prove you’re more than the brat you used to be. Get Parkinson to come and swear an Oath. I know the rumours will get around eventually, but I’d like to prevent that as much as I can.”

“Maybe you should start by getting your bumbling fool of a friend to lower his voice in public, then,” Draco snapped, stung. “I could hear him all the way out here.”

Potter looked taken aback for a moment, but then his face closed off and he walked away without another word.

“You really think it’s just a hellfire curse?”

Draco turned to see George standing to the side. The tall woman’s arm was around his waist, so Draco assumed they must be dating.

“Yes.” Draco nodded. “It looks like a variety I’m not familiar with, judging by the residual thickness of the air, but I’m sure it’s just a slight modification.”

“But you’re not familiar with it,” George said, a strange look in his eye.

“No,” Draco admitted. “But—”

“But Harry says you’re the best curse breaker there is.”

Draco’s stomach did a funny little flip. “He does?” He shook his head. “No, well…” He paused. He hadn’t wanted to voice his fears, but it was true. There was something about this curse that felt off. And if Draco couldn’t identify it…

“I’m sure whoever takes the case will be more than familiar with it,” he said, instead.

“Will you take the case?”

Draco froze. Surely, this was a trick. If he’d been George Weasley, he would have suspected Draco of being _behind_ the damn explosion. He wouldn’t have asked him to solve the mystery. But then, he acknowledged his own appearance: bright pink dust covered him all over, his hair was spiked and matted from the blast, and now that the adrenaline had passed, his body felt aching and bruised.

No, it was painfully obvious to anyone who knew him that Draco wasn’t behind this curse, no matter how strategically his presence at the crime might deflect suspicion.

“You don’t trust anyone,” he guessed.

The faint sound of voices from the back room told Draco that Potter was speaking to the Aurors, and he was surprised when George lowered his voice so as not to be heard.

“No, I don’t. All I know is that someone owled me a timed curse, and it wasn’t you. Everything else is uncertain, and I want to know who’s behind it.”

Draco eyed the package, taking in the way it pulsed softly in the light. Hellfire curses didn’t pulse; only transfiguration or ignition curses had enough residual power to hum like that, and they didn’t explode. It didn’t make sense.

The Aurors emerged, followed by Potter.

“Right,” said the first one. “Is that it, then? We’ll get a curse breaker on scene to remove and secure immediately.”

“No need,” Draco said, standing up straight and ignoring the way the Aurors’ eyes raked all over his dishevelled appearance in surprise. “I’ll take the case.”

The undeniable look of relief on Potter’s face stayed with Draco for the rest of the day.

*

Pansy was horrified when Draco told her what had happened.

“They’re making me swear an _Oath_?” She hissed. “Bollocks. As if I’d tell anyone apart from you. It’s only going to make the prat more desirable and famous. I’d sooner spread a rumour that he’s been fired and sent away to herd sheep in Ireland.” Her eyes brightened. “Do you think—”

“No, I do not _think_ ,” Draco interrupted, pouring them both a hefty dram of scotch. “And neither do you, if that piss-poor suggestion is anything to go by. As if anyone is going to buy that the Saviour became a _shepherd_.” He paused. “Although, it does have a faintly messiah-istic feel to it that we could exploit.” He cut that thought off before it could begin and handed Pansy her glass. “Listen, Pans. I’m on their case now. I can’t afford to cause scandal.”

He was still shaken up that George Weasley had personally requested his services. It felt… somehow momentous. Before today, if anyone had asked him whether he cared what any Weasley thought of him, he would have politely suggested they get a Healer to assess them for spell damage. But here he was; colour him surprised to discover just how much he didn’t want to screw it up.

“Fine.” Pansy rolled her eyes. “I’ll swear the Oath.”

“Good.”

She sniffed in response.

Draco turned back to his notes. He didn’t have the package in the room with them, of course. It was out the back in his work room under a number of security spells. At this point, he hadn’t even opened it; he was too caught up on the bizarre results of his diagnostics.

“Please tell me that’s not work.” Pansy stood up to look over his shoulder. “I may as well leave now if it is.”

“Don’t let the door hit you on your way out,” Draco murmured, crosschecking one of his notes against the open ledger on his desk.

“Holy hell,” Pansy breathed.

Draco looked up, blinking her into focus. She stared at him with open horror on her face.

“You actually care.” Her tone was accusatory.

Draco scoffed. “Care? About the Weasley brood? Absolutely not. About upholding the credibility and reputation of my name and profession? Of course.”

“No.” Pansy shook her head, already reaching for the door, like Draco was a lost cause and she wasn’t going to waste another moment more on him. “That’s not why you’re doing this—you’re doing it for Potter.” With that, she opened the door and left, letting it slam pointedly behind her.

Draco stared at the door for several moments before shaking his head and turning back to his work. It didn’t make sense. None of the diagnostics matched any known spell—it wasn’t even a known _derivative_ that he could reverse engineer. It was like a whole new branch of curse magic. Some elements matched a branch here or there—most closely the hellfire curse, as he’d originally thought it was, from the mercurial branch—but then it would throw something in that was solely psychical, or only tacit, and he’d be right back where he started.

Those were the basic divisions of all curses: mercurial curses dealt with explosions and catalysts, things of a volatile nature; psychical curses affected the mind or soul; and tacit curses were the insidious curses that crept into your very being and manipulated you, controlled you. Between the three branches, they covered everything Draco had seen and could expect to see in all known curses, but it wasn’t helping him now. It was almost as if he had to dissect the entire curse from scratch so that he could categorise it somewhere new before he could even begin dismantling it.

His head snapped up. He caught sight of his reflection in the crystal cabinet: his eyes were wide and crazed, the candlelight sending erratic shadows dancing across his face. Surely not. Surely it wasn’t _entirely_ unknown. He staggered to his feet and almost ran to the fireplace. Pinching a handful of Floo powder, he threw it in and called out Potter’s address, resolutely ignoring the fact that before today they hadn’t even been on friendly speaking terms, and now he was making house calls.

When he stumbled through into the surprisingly sparse living room—a mystery for another day—he was faintly shocked that the wards had let him through at all. Then, he spotted Potter sitting at the kitchen bench, the light from the lamp barely reaching him, two thirds down into a bottle of Ogden’s Old.

“How is he?” Draco asked, ignoring every other question that was screaming at him and diving for the urgent one.

“Alive,” Potter said, his voice catching a little.

Draco breathed a sigh of relief, though he could tell from Potter’s voice that there was a ‘barely’ hidden in there somewhere.

“The curse,” Draco said slowly. “I don’t recognise it. It’s not known.”

Potter’s mouth twisted into a wry grin. “Figures. What does that mean, then? We’re just stumbling in the dark until we land on a miracle and he wakes up?”

“He’s still unconscious?”

Potter nodded. “Healers can’t explain it. Everything’s fine. He just won’t wake up.”

Draco realised he was nodding along uselessly, and he made himself stop. “We have to find out what the curse is. If we can identify it, we can understand what it’s done to him.”

Potter’s brows drew together. “We?”

Draco waved a hand. “Not you and I, obviously. But I need an anchor. The spell hasn’t been used in centuries—it hasn’t been needed. It’s highly complex and involves dissecting the spellwork while engaging in something like a meditative state.” He grimaced a little, his mind wandering to several readings he’d done on the process. He knew he was rambling, but he couldn’t make himself stop. The whole situation was just so unbelievable. “You enter a dream-state where you can see the curse manifest as something physical and tangible, like tree or a wall or something that can be analysed. But, of course, to do that you have to trick the curse into thinking you’re not a threat, and the easiest way to do _that_ is to make it think you’re a part of it rather than some interloper. It can turn nasty if it realises you’re there and you don’t have an anchor with you to make sure the curse doesn’t—” he paused, and then finished lamely, “eat you.”

Potter nodded, staring vacantly into the distance. He looked like he was coming to some sort of decision.

“I’ll get in touch with some colleagues first thing in the morning. I’m sure I won’t have trouble finding someone who—”

“I’ll do it.”

“Pardon me?”

“I’ll be your anchor.”

Draco laughed. “Potter, I don’t think you understand. It’s a fragile, delicate piece of, quite frankly, hugely experimental magic. I need a trained professional who—”

“It was last conducted successfully by the wizards Stanwart and Thaise, who braided together their magical signatures into an unrecognisable aura that slipped beneath the curse’s protective layer and dismantled it from within,” Potter interrupted, meeting Draco’s eyes while Draco gaped at him.

That same look from before filled them, and Draco was certain now that he’d never seen Potter look so bitter and alone.

Potter continued: “Something that they wouldn’t have even known how to do, had Thaise not been an Unspeakable with access to centuries of archives Stanwart didn’t even know existed. We’re not going to be doing _that,_ of course.” He gave a mocking laugh. “But I’m sure there’s something in my _area_ that will be invaluable in experimental magic.” He bared his teeth; no one in their right mind could call it a smile. “After all. It’s what I do.”

Draco felt a rush of something hot flood through him, and he pushed it back with a gulp.

“The anchor keeps us linked to ourselves and to the curse,” Potter added quietly. “The only times the spell ever went wrong were when the person controlling the anchor let themselves get pulled too far one way. You don’t want to end up with someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, or who panics at the last second and tries to anchor you back to yourself when you’re still tied to the curse.”

Draco took a deep breath.

“You are aware that until I can break the curse, we won’t remember anything that happens inside the dream-state?” he asked. “We have to work in complete isolation—nothing new goes in, nothing comes out, not until it’s over. It’s part of the process of confusing the curse and making sure it doesn’t get suspicious and attack.” He took another deep breath, feeling his sanity leaving him the longer he spoke. “It means we have to trust each other completely, Potter, because once we’re inside, there’s no one to help us but ourselves.”

Potter didn’t even hesitate. “I’ll trust you if you trust me.”

Draco knew it was the alcohol—he could see it in the way Potter’s eyes were faintly glassy, and how they lingered on him far longer than normal—but when Potter’s gaze drifted along Draco’s body, pausing at the open button at the top of his shirt before dropping lower still, he couldn’t help but shiver. He only hoped it was dark enough to hide the rising flush on his cheeks.

“All right,” Draco said carefully after he’d weighed up all the thousands of ways this could go wrong. “You’ll be my anchor?”

Potter’s eyes lifted back to his, though Draco swore they lingered a moment too long on his mouth. “I’ll be your anchor.”

Bollocks.

*

Draco’s flat felt emptier than before when he returned. Something about the way Potter filled up a room, like he was just _more_ than everyone else. How could Draco compete with that?

And what had happened to him? When had he become so… different? So sour?

He took a glance at the open bottle of scotch he’d left behind and the bottles of wine in their rack on the kitchen bench. With a flick of his wand, he sent them all sailing into the liquor cabinet. He locked it and threw the key behind the armoire. He needed to focus; there was no time to get smashed, however tempting it might be.

Then, he sat down to read.

*

_Curse Identification_

_Prior to the great work done in the sixteenth century during the implementation of standardized Curse Breaking procedures, wizards and witches were frequently required to engage in the intricate practice of Curse Identification._

_In addition to our standard realm of existence (known rules of physics apply), there exists a realm wherein magical essence (mineral and animal) is allowed to exist in its natural state. Such a realm (known colloquially as the Ether), though dangerous and—pending further research—unpredictable, is accessible via the Transition Potion (for brewing instructions please refer to Appendix III)._

_The potion transitions the user into a trance-like state, whereupon they will be able to view the curse in its natural form, study it, and map out a dismantlement plan. Reports have varied as to the nature of such forms, but most often representations will mimic that of natural forms in the standard realm: flowers, skeletons, and sometimes puzzles. It is recommended to employ a trained anchor to assist the researcher in this transition. The anchor will maintain the delicate balance of connection to both the standard realm and the curse simultaneously._

_Given the volatile nature of the Ether, and the uniform nature of curses to be both insidious and aggressive, it is vital that researchers undertake multiple safety precautions. These include wards to preserve and maintain the curse in a semi-stasis state, ensuring zero change to the working environment and therefore reduced opportunity for the curse to learn it is being watched._

_To further ensure the curse does not ensnare the researcher and trap them within the Ether, the researcher also consumes a Chameleon Potion (see Appendix III) that acts as a camouflage, enabling the curse to see the researcher as an extension of itself, and, therefore, non-threatening._

_Short success—in the form of rising numbers of completed identification spells and fewer deaths—was attributed to the Chameleon Potion. However, it was soon discovered that after returning to the standard realm, the potency of the Chameleon Potion on each subsequent use within the same environment began to rapidly fade. It was determined that, as the researcher is disguised as part of the preserved working environment within the Ether, allowing that working environment to ‘leave’ triggers a weakening of the semi-stasis._

_Therefore, to ensure that_ all _facets of the working environment are adequately maintained and preserved, the researchers’ memories are stored in a warded Pensieve. In order to prevent researchers from prematurely concluding the identification process, retrieving their memories, and inadvertently triggering a disturbance in the stasis preservation that prevents them from re-entry, these wards will only de-activate upon successful mapping and dismantlement of the curse._

*

Three hours later, his mild frustration had given way to something new. It was an insidious feeling, something faint and barely within reach. The more he read, the more it grew, steadily creeping along his spine until he could feel it thudding in every pulse of his heartbeat and he had to shove the book away. After several seconds of chilling silence, he realised it was despair.

He and Potter didn’t have a hope in hell of pulling off this spell. It was needling and temperamental. It required constant attention from the anchor to ensure it didn’t take hold of the curse breaker’s own magic and rip him—quite literally—limb from limb. More than that, it demanded absolute synergy between the anchor and the curse breaker. If there was any moment of dissention between the two of them, it would take a hold of the opportunity to swallow both of them into the Ether, and all would be lost.

The thought that his life might very soon lie in Potter’s hands was both nauseating and disturbingly familiar.

He considered refusing to allow Potter to join him, childish temper tantrums be damned, but there was a strong, undeniable part of him that was looking at the situation objectively. Potter knew the spell. He had access to information no one else did. Once they were inside the mechanism, there were no second chances. They could re-engage as many times as they liked, but they couldn’t introduce someone new or it would weaken the structure.

Objectively, Potter was his best chance. He could always ask another Unspeakable, but even when he’d thought that his only option, he’d been hesitant. He’d worked with several Unspeakables before on smaller matters, and he never got along with them. They knew too much about him—or he felt like they did. No matter how essential it was that they remove their personal lives from their work, he’d never met one who could, not where he was concerned. He didn’t trust them to hold the spell. He didn’t trust them to anchor him without having that small moment of indecision, that one tiny moment where they looked at him and thought _Death Eater_. The anchor would slip, the curse would adjust, and it would all be over.

Oddly, he did trust Potter. It wasn’t just that he was emotionally invested in this case, which would certainly override any feelings he had about Draco. It wasn’t just what George had said to him—that Potter thought he was the best—and the certainty that Potter wanted him on this case. It was the look in Potter’s eyes, how everything seemed a little bit dull around the edges. It was the certainty that nothing was hidden, not around Draco—the knowledge that there were no simpering smiles that could fall away as soon as his back was turned.

It was the smell of Fiendfyre, hot and burning.

Draco shook his head and pulled the book back towards him. He could keep reading, but he wasn’t sure there was any point. He had read everything he could get his hands on several times now, and if he wasn’t the expert on the identification spell, no one was.

They’d have to start with an investigation at the scene of the crime, just to make sure there weren’t any lingering effects he’d missed, and after a moment’s indecision he decided to invite Potter. It was better he was there, just in case there was something in the Unspeakable archives that rang a bell.

And then, Merlin help him, they’d be back at Draco’s flat, locked in his workroom, working together.

He penned a quick note to Potter to let him know they’d start at midday tomorrow, set it on the table so that he’d remember to owl it the second he woke up—Potter would be asleep by now—and went to bed.

*

The shelves of the apothecary were so dusty, Draco had to tie his scarf around his nose and under his eyes just to be able to breathe. As such, it took him a few moments to notice the woman beside him, and a second more to realise she was laughing at him.

He pulled the scarf down and glared at her. “Do you mind?” he snapped, before realising that it was the woman he had seen in the shop yesterday—George’s partner.

“Sorry,” she said, sounding anything but. “It was just a little unexpected.” She held out her wand in a questioning gesture. “May I?”

Warily, Draco nodded.

She gave the wand a tiny little shimmy, and a cloud of breathable air descended around Draco’s head. He drew in a deep breath and smiled.

“Thank you,” he said grudgingly. “That’s a neat one. What was the incantation?”

He hadn’t been able to work out what she had done with the wand—it was an odd little movement he hadn’t seen before.

“Family secret.”

Her smile was warm enough that Draco swallowed down his insistence that she tell him the spell and turned back to the shelves.

“Are you purchasing supplies to break the hellfire curse?” she asked, taking down a bottle of powdered mushroom and setting it in the basket on her elbow.

“Not quite,” Draco admitted.

Potter mustn’t have told them. Draco felt suddenly uncomfortable at being the one to break the news.

“The curse has proven more difficult than expected,” he said finally. “Potter is going to assist me in getting to the root of it.”

She nodded, blue eyes conflicted. He hadn’t told her exactly what had happened, but he could tell she understood.

The door opened and the bustling sounds of Diagon Alley filtered in, accompanied by a young child talking excitedly and a harassed-looking witch trying to juggle multiple parcels. With a jolt of shock, Draco realised it was Hermione Granger. Well, Weasley now, he supposed, but she would always be Granger to him.

“There you are, Aunty Morgan!”

The little girl raced up and hugged her. Granger acknowledged Draco with a little wave, and he nodded politely, trying desperately to ignore the comatose elephant in the room.

“Thank you for helping us out, Draco,” Granger said, essentially walking up and kicking the elephant right in the leg.

He sighed and gave up. “You’re most welcome, Granger,” he said stiffly. “We’re doing all we can.”

“Look what Mummy bought me!” Rose held up the giant book she was holding, waving it as close as she could get to Morgan’s face. “Will you read it to me?”

Morgan laughed. “Of course.”

Draco caught sight of the cover of the book and gave a small start. “I used to have that book when I was younger,” he said, smiling at the little girl. “It has wonderful fairy tales in it.”

The girl immediately turned her attention on him, delighted to expand her audience. “It does! It even has ones that Aunty Morgan doesn’t know! She tells the _best_ fairy tales. My name’s Rose! What’s your name?”

“My name is Draco.”

Granger stifled a laugh and tried to calm her daughter down with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Draco’s a very busy man, Rose. We’ll leave him to it.” She turned to Draco and confided: “I’m not very good at telling fairy tales. They’re just so unbelievable.”

“Well, there’s your problem,” Morgan said with a grin. “You have to suspend your disbelief for a moment.”

Draco felt a little like he had to suspend disbelief just to understand how this conversation was managing to stay so civil.

Granger snorted. “That sounds dangerous.” She turned back to Draco. “We really do have to run now. Thanks again.”

Rose waved to him as Granger hustled her out of the shop. Morgan paused a moment more to say goodbye.

“Don’t hesitate to call on me if you need anything,” she said quietly, extending a graceful hand to clasp Draco’s shoulder. “We all love Ron very much. I don’t want to see this happen again.”

“Of course,” Draco said, thrown. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Morgan.” She smiled and waved goodbye, leaving him alone while she purchased her supplies and joined Granger out the front.

Draco didn’t have the brain space available to process this strange new witch, or the fact that Hermione Granger seemed perfectly happy to treat him like an ordinary person, so he turned back to the shelves and began loading up on everything he could possibly need, along with extra.

By the time he had arrived home and set up the protective spells in the workroom, Potter’s owl had returned with a curt acquiescence to the time. Draco could practically smell his sleep breath through the parchment, and part of him wished he had sent it in the middle of the night after all, since his courtesy had been so rudely received.

He had just finished checking the last of the spells for the fifth time, when a knocking so loud it could only be Potter came from the door, jolting him abruptly from his concentration and giving him a strong sense of foreboding for their impending work relationship.

“Did you know that toddlers learn to mediate their strength at around the age of three?” he asked lightly as he opened the door to a Potter that smelled just as strongly of a liquor cabinet as he had last night. “I knew you were developmentally delayed, but I had no idea it was quite so bad.”

“Shove a sock in it,” Potter growled. “I’m out of hangover potion. Have you got any?”

Draco flicked his wand and a tiny vial came racing out of the cupboard. He handed it wordlessly to Potter and waited until the shudders had passed.

“Better?”

“Much.”

For a long moment, they just stared at each other. The strange openness and borderline interest from last night was entirely absent, and they were back to their usual distaste and rancour. All the possible ways this could play out flickered through Draco’s mind in the space of a minute: polite, stilted conversation; social niceties; formal workplace procedures. Or, the more likely scenario: screaming matches reverberating off Silencing charms until they drowned in their own vitriol.

He took a deep breath.

“There’s no point wasting time,” he said, his eyes flicking to the closed door of his work room where complicated symbols etched in red chalk flickered faintly on the wood.

“I’m not here for pleasantries.”

Potter’s voice, though back to his normal timbre, still grated like metal over concrete. Draco tried to think back to the moments before the explosion; had he still sounded like this? Draco thought he had, but at the time it had seemed plausible that he was just irritated at his secret being compromised. That answer no longer seemed so likely.

He realised that Potter was looking at him strangely and that he had been staring at the wall for several moments. He shook his head lightly and turned away. They weren’t here to work out the mystery of Potter; they had one purpose, and one purpose alone. He felt a moment’s regret that he hadn’t insisted they meet at the shop; it would have at least spared him a few minutes awkward glaring.

“Do you want to look at the curse one more time before we go to the shop?” he asked, keeping his voice careful and polite like Potter was some wild animal that would attack at the sound of sarcasm.

Potter shook his head, and then in a gesture Draco found deeply unsettling, extended his hand to Sidealong them. At this point, Draco realised that while the hangover potion had indeed done its job and eliminated the hangover, it had done nothing to correct the fact that Potter was still drunk.

He opened his mouth to offer a Sober-up potion, but Potter had already grasped his hand—eyes oddly glazed and intent—dragged him into the corridor, and Apparated.

“Well, this is professional,” Draco muttered, steadying himself against the desk in the back room of the shop.

Potter’s Apparation skills were sketchy at best; today, it seemed a miracle they weren’t splinched.

“The package came from this pile,” Potter said, pointing to one side of the room.

Since the explosion, the Aurors had come through and swept the place for evidence, leaving only a shield charm around the remaining packages.

“I can do a test on these to make sure there is no lingering danger,” Draco offered. “Then, perhaps George won’t have any issues with his stock or personal mail.”

Potter looked at him strangely but nodded, stepping back so that Draco could cast a number of charms over the shielded packages and then give him the all clear.

“Why do you call George and Ron by their first name?” he asked.

“Pure fear that calling for Weasley will get me six of them at once,” Draco responded immediately. “I am a practical man.” He shot Potter a smirk. “Why? Are you jealous?”

He nearly stumbled when Potter’s eyes met his. The unsteady Apparation had left his hair even wilder than usual, sweeping across his face and shadowing his eyes. If he didn’t know better, he would have said Potter _was_ jealous—jealous and angry.

Then, he said, “As if,” in an entirely normal sort of voice—nothing like the strange roughness he seemed to speak with these days, and the moment passed.

George stuck his head around the door, grinning when he saw the two of them. Draco felt strangely off balance when he realised the smile was equally intended for him as for Potter.

“Need a hand?” he asked. “I can leave Norman minding the register. Doesn’t have quite the same flair for customer service, but he tries his best, bless him.”

Norman, it appeared, was a large mop with a fiery orange head, leaning upside down against the back wall with a bow tie stuck halfway up the handle.

“We’re all right, George,” Potter said with a grin. “Won’t be much longer now.”

Draco noticed with a start that his voice was now entirely normal. More than that—he was smiling. So, it seemed this strange new Potter wasn’t evident in all situations. Curious.

The second George disappeared, he moved casually over to Potter’s side of the room to cast a couple of diagnostics on the wall. He managed to resist the urge to cast them on Potter.

“Is there a reason for the double act?” he asked.

He watched Potter closely out of the corner of his eye, pretending the question was casual, dismissive. He took in the way Potter froze, steadying himself against the desk since he was still swaying slightly from the drink, and turned to glare at him.

“What double act?” he growled, and Draco fought the urge to roll his eyes at how beautifully Potter was illustrating his point.

“The one where you’re all ‘Harry Potter, Boy Hero’, to your friends, but ‘Harry Potter, Traumatised War Victim’, to me.”

Draco waited for Potter to lunge at him, braced for the fight and—truthfully—begging for it. It had been a long time since he’d brawled with Potter, and while the circumstances of their assignment required them to remain civil with each other, if Potter was going to turn up drunk just so that he could stomach the sight of Draco, clearly more drastic measures were required.

To his surprise, Potter laughed. It was a cold sound, made worse for the slight note of drunken amusement that wouldn’t seem to fade away. All of a sudden, he realised how close Potter was. He turned to face him and took an involuntary step backwards at the triumph on Potter’s face.

“Is that right?” he asked, bracing himself on the wall by Draco’s head.

As far as Draco could tell, it seemed to be as much for actual balance as it was for intimidation, and to his absolute horror, it was working. Though, perhaps not in the manner that Potter intended.

He fought the urge to adjust his robes and glared back. Potter was still talking.

“Did you know that Hermione would go spare if she had any idea that you knew something about me that she didn’t?”

“What in Merlin’s name are you talking about?” Draco spat, shoving Potter backwards and trying to remember how to breathe.

Potter barely even stumbled. Draco was going to have to seriously re-evaluate his opinion of working out if he couldn’t even move a drunk person. Though, surely Potter was sobering up by now—and yet he was still looking at Draco with that oddly glazed, triumphant expression.

Potter’s eyes ran over him, and Draco swallowed. There was something heated in them now, even more so than in the brief glance last night.

“Even if you are a total git about it,” he continued, ignoring Draco entirely. “Still, I knew you’d see it. No one else does, but I knew you would.”

“See what?”

Potter laughed. “You just said it. Did you need me to spell it out for you?”

His eyes slid lower down, pausing at Draco’s hips, and his breath hitched. Draco began to panic; could he see the bulge? Was it obvious? Draco gave him another shove, but it was like trying to move a mountain.

A noise came from the shop—George’s laughter, warm and bright and entirely incongruous to everything Draco felt right now—and Potter stepped back. The expression on his face faded, replaced by the shutters that Draco was becoming increasingly familiar with.

“Find anything?” he asked, leaning back against the desk and shoving his hands in his pockets.

“No,” Draco said after a moment to catch his breath. “There’s nothing more here.”

He refused to look at Potter, sure that everything he was feeling would be written on his face.

“Right.” Potter pushed off from the desk. “Let’s get back to your flat and make a start.”

“Tomorrow,” Draco said sharply.

Potter looked at him.

“It’s not ready,” he lied.

After a moment, Potter shrugged. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

With a sharp crack, he Disapparated, leaving Draco alone with a very uncomfortable problem.

 


	2. Chapter Two

Draco had always known he was attracted to Potter. It was something that had sparked within him a whole lot of grief and self-hatred in fourth year—not because it was a boy, but because it was _Potter_ —until he’d realised that he could be attracted to him and still completely hate him, and the world suddenly felt right again.

He no longer hated Potter, but he also suffered no delusions about how dreadful an idea it was to consider him anything more than a mild, sexy annoyance. And yet, every time Draco thought back to yesterday afternoon, pushed up against the wall with Potter’s eyes roaming over him like he was water in a desert, he managed to completely forget why.

Still, he was a professional, and Potter was an idiot, so he pushed the thought out of his mind as best he could. By the time he opened the door to Potter that afternoon, he was more likely to hex him than snog him, and that was exactly how Draco liked it.

Potter still smelled like alcohol, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as yesterday morning, and Draco ignored it.

“We’ll work in here,” he said, crossing the room and opening the door.

In the centre of the room, a large, red circle had been drawn on the ground, surrounding the package from yesterday. There had never been much furniture in the first place, but what there was had been pushed against the walls: neatly stacked rows of shelving, several small tables, and a single chair. The numerous books that didn’t fit into the bookcase had been piled symmetrically in the corners.

A small Pensieve sat on the table next to the package, shimmering faintly beneath the strength of the wards Draco had set. The first time they drank the Transition Potion, the wards on the door would activate and their memories would be stored in the Pensieve. It was only when the spell sensed that the curse had been successfully disarmed that the wards would come down and their memories could be returned.

He felt Potter come to stand behind him and look around the room, and when Draco turned to look at him, he had an expression of calculated interest in his eyes. It made Draco feel unusually self-conscious, and he covered it with a fierce glare.

“Do you need to go through the procedure?” he asked, feeling a perverse need for Potter to say ‘yes, please, Draco, guide me and hold my hand’.

Potter just stared at him.

Draco let out a long, slow breath. Potter might be closer to some semblance of normalcy than he had been yesterday, but he still looked like he’d just leaped off the back of a motorbike while it was still moving. How did someone like that become an Unspeakable? Everything about him—his beaten-up leather jacket, his arrogant slouch, his untameable hair—screamed brawns-no-brain. And yet, even Draco was finding himself forced to admit that Potter was hiding a level of intelligence with unknown depth.

“I know the procedure,” Potter confirmed when the silence had stretched on too long and Draco didn’t know how to break it without starting an argument. “It’s my specialty.”

Well, damn. Wasn’t that just a sentence that begged clarification. Draco closed his eyes and counted to ten, forcing himself to swallow down the insatiable need to know more about Potter, always more.

“Then, let us begin,” he gritted out instead.

He handed Potter the two potions he’d prepared with the ingredients from this morning, held his own glass up in a mocking salute, and drained them both in quick succession. The first one—the Chameleon potion—wasn’t too bad, but the Transition Potion tasted like pig swill. He closed his eyes, trying not to choke on the flavour, and felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder, its owner staggering for balance.

“What the fuck is in that?” Potter gasped.

Draco turned to him, an insult on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t grasp a hold of it. The room was blurring, Potter’s face distorting before his eyes into a thousand colours and shapes that didn’t seem like they could possibly fit together and yet managed to all the same. All at once, Draco realised his error, but before he could work out how to operate his mouth to warn Potter, he fell forward, his forehead brushing against the red chalk of the circle, and passed out.

*

With slowly creeping clarity, the room came into focus. It was smaller than Draco remembered—emptier too—and the colours didn’t seem right. He sat up with a small groan, rubbing his head where it had clunked against the floor.

“Bit potent,” Potter mumbled from beside him, sitting back on his hands and rolling his head around to stretch out his shoulders. “I thought it was meant to take a couple of minutes, so we could at least sit down first.”

“Yes, well, it’s obviously a touch stronger than expected, isn’t it?” Draco snapped. “How’s your head?”

Potter levelled him with a stare. “I don’t know,” he said pointedly. “It aches a bit, but since this is only a metaphysical representation of the curse rather than a real room, for all I know I’m bleeding to death on your workroom floor. There’s nothing we can do about it now, so let’s just get started.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “You’d know, Potter. Anything that happens to your body out there happens in here, and vice versa.”

Potter grunted, apparently annoyed that he had overlooked something that Draco hadn’t. Draco mentally chalked up a win, and then he put it out of his mind and focused on their surroundings.

“Fucking bollocks,” Draco hissed, climbing to his feet and looking around at the curse. After a long moment, he admitted, “I didn’t expect it to be an entire room.”

The room they were in, now that Draco looked around, was very obviously not the workroom they had left behind in the physical world. It was approximately four metres square, and its most striking feature was its walls: they looked like the inside of a mechanical watch, interspersed with sections of metal lattice that pulsed gently with a faint white light. Draco turned around slowly, looking the walls up and down and determining that there was definitely no door. Thankfully, the floors and ceiling were ordinary floorboards and plaster, and they had no sensation of hot or cold in here, so, apart from being surrounded by imposing layers of moving metal, it was a relatively pleasant place to be stuck for the next few hours.

Potter moved in a slow circle, examining the walls closely. “And we’re not going to remember any of this once we wake up?” he breathed, unmistakably awed despite the roughness to his tone.

“Not a whit,” Draco agreed, moving to the centre of the room and taking his toolkit from his pocket. “I don’t suppose you know anything about watches, Potter?”

“Only that Arthur likes to tinker with them,” Potter said, distracted, as he leaned in to study a tiny gear ticking around on its own for no apparent reason.

“So, nothing helpful, then,” Draco said flatly.

“’Fraid not.”

“Right,” Draco huffed, laying out his apparatus on the floor. He selected a tiny wand—the size of a chopstick and used for locating the first loose thread in a curse’s shield—and picked a wall at random. “Then just focus on keeping us anchored and shut up.”

He heard the sound of clothing rustling and something heavy hitting the floor, and just for a moment he froze as the mental image of Potter undressing and lying back on the ground, legs spread, hit him out of absolutely fucking nowhere. A terrified whimper escaped the back of his throat, and he whirled around in horror.

Potter looked up at him, one eyebrow raised, from his perfectly innocent position on the floor, sitting on his leather jacket for comfort. “Something wrong, Malfoy?”

“Nothing.” Draco spun back around and glared at the wall.

Perhaps he didn’t have his latent fantasies as under control as he’d thought. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He simply could not afford to deal with this right now—it was too dangerous to become distracted in here. In the same way that he’d pushed aside all unnecessary thoughts when the package had exploded, he pushed aside all thoughts of Potter. He would focus on what needed to be done, and that was it.

Now, the more important question was: how in Merlin’s name was he going to unknit the first layer of the curse’s shield, when the entire curse was presenting itself as an analogue mechanism? A vision of jamming the wand into one of the gears and watching the entire thing stutter to an explosive halt ran through his mind, and he viciously dismissed it.

“Stop.”

The word was quiet, reluctant, but Draco heard it all the same. He thought about ignoring it, but that wasn’t why he was here. Fighting against Potter was only going to risk their safety, and in the quiet recesses of his mind even he could admit it was a stupid idea.

He turned around, and Potter gestured for him to sit down.

“We don’t have much time,” Draco protested.

“It’s not going to matter if we keep butting heads,” Potter said bluntly.

Draco paused for a moment, and then took a seat on the floor in front of Potter. It would seem he wasn’t the only one suddenly all too aware now that the danger was real.

“What is it?” he asked, the words dragging themselves out.

“We need our minds to be wholly on the task,” Potter said before reaching into the front of his shirt.

For a moment, Draco stopped breathing, but then Potter drew his hand out again, bringing a small pendant with it and holding it up so it was gently swinging from the black cord around Potter’s neck.

Draco couldn’t hold back a laugh when he saw it was a tiny anchor. “Subtle.”

Potter smirked. “It can be easy to lose yourself in these dream-states,” he said, running his hand down the cord until his fingers lightly brushed the top of the anchor. “Anything real and tangible helps prevent that from happening.” He looked up suddenly, and Draco felt caught in the intensity of his gaze. “You don’t need to worry; I’ve done this before. Not for this spell, but for many, many others. I’m good at it. My magic is tuned to the anchor,” he gave it a little wave, “and the second we start to lose ourselves, I’ll feel it. I’m not going to let us get consumed by this curse, Malfoy, so just focus on figuring out how it works.”

How could he possibly figure out the curse when Potter was looking at him like that? He swallowed, searched for the words, and then swallowed again. It was pointless. No matter how many mysteries Potter kept throwing at him, he had to just shove them away or he’d never be able to focus on the task at hand. It’s not like he was going to get any answers anyway.

He nodded, but just as he stood up to get back to work, Potter reached out and grabbed him by the wrist.

“Malfoy, if there’s something bothering you, you have to get it off your chest now,” he warned. “We can’t be distracted.”

It was almost like this was a third Potter, sitting in front of him. He was unlike the happy, light-hearted person he was with his friends, and again unlike the brooding, volatile person that Draco was becoming so intrigued by. Was it really just that they were both making the effort, for the first time, to work together? If Draco had known that was all it took to get his proverbial handshake, he would have threatened their lives long ago.

“Why did you become an Unspeakable?” The words were out before he could stop them.

Potter blinked in surprise. “Really?” he asked, incredulous. “That’s what’s bothering you?”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Draco spat. “You’ve never liked any of this—the Ministry, secrets, gossip. It’s not _you_ , Potter. Why did you do it?”

Potter stared at him before exhaling in a long breath. “The Horcrux was still inside me,” he said, and Draco felt like he’d just been punched in the stomach.

The walls seemed to fade around him as Potter kept speaking. He’d heard about the Horcruxes. The whispers had spread after the battle, no matter how much the Ministry tried to keep them contained. He’d never fully believed them.

“After the war, I could feel it. Dead, but lingering, rotting away in my blood. The Unspeakables wanted to study me, like I was some kind of lab rat. Given half the choice, I reckon they would have left it inside me just to see what it did.”

“So, you became an Unspeakable to do what they wouldn’t,” Draco guessed, the words sending shivers down his spine.

Potter nodded. “Beyond that, I don’t want to talk about it. Can you accept that as the answer, Malfoy? Or is it still going to distract you?”

Draco felt the weight of Potter’s admission settle against him. He wondered if anyone else knew; he had the strangest sensation that he might be the only one. Potter’s eyes were too heavy, too bitter, for this to be something he was comfortable admitting.

Something between them had changed, and Draco didn’t yet know what it was.

He nodded, and Potter released his wrist, Draco only now realising that he had been holding it all this time. His skin felt cold at the loss of contact.

“We’ve only got about an hour left of the potion before we wake up,” he said, his voice coming out rough. “I’d better get to work.”

Drawing deep on recesses of strength he hadn’t known he’d ever need, Draco finally managed to stop thinking about Potter. The room faded into the background until all he could see in front of him was the set of three brass cogs he had chosen to focus on first. He had decided it didn’t matter where he started—the most important part for now was to get beneath the curse’s outer shield.

When you first began work as a curse breaker, they taught you that curses were like a series of babushka dolls with teeth: find the opening without getting bitten, and you’d slowly get closer to the curse’s core until you were able to destroy it. It wasn’t until Draco was in his sixth year of training that he realised that was utter bullshit. Curses weren’t like babushka dolls at all; they were like balls of yarn that were made out of barbed wire. The only consolation was that centuries of study and practice had given their profession a collection of maps to work by. Once you knew what you were looking for, you could locate all the little pressure points, poke them one by one, and the wire would unravel in a neat and orderly fashion, like the layers of a doll.

Draco didn’t need the wire to unravel, but he did need to know where the layers were and what they did. He might not care about the Weasleys, but he couldn’t escape the image in the back of his mind of Ron stretched out on a hospital bed, unconscious while the unknown curse did Merlin-knows-what to his mind.

He ran the tiny wand over the space above the cogs, feeling for the slightest shift in air pressure that would indicate a weakness. The wand was attuned to the smallest movement, but even with its advantage all Draco could feel was smooth resistance. He had been hoping he could at least slip beneath some of the curse’s defence mechanisms without risk, but luck did not appear to be on his side.

Knowing that it would alert the curse to their presence, he gingerly tapped the smallest cog and waited. For a split second, everything stopped moving, like a sleeping animal hitching its breath, and then it started again, and Draco let out the breath he had been holding for several minutes.

He heard Potter breathe a sigh behind him.

“How’s it going?”

The question was quiet, respectful. Draco wouldn’t have known Potter had it in him.

“The first part is complete,” Draco said, running the tiny wand around the cogs to make sure there was no more resistance. “It let me inside.”

“Seems strange that you need to get inside it when you’re already technically in it,” Potter mused.

Draco turned around to study him. He had a point; that same question had been bothering him since they’d started. “I didn’t think we’d be inside it,” he said, stepping into the centre of the room and looking around at the moving walls. “I thought our minds would put us in the workroom and the curse would be where the package is, just with a different appearance. But despite the fact that we do appear to be inside the curse itself, its defences are still there.”

The walls continued to move without stuttering, and Draco decided it was enough time to be certain they were safe. He drew out his notebook from his front pocket, cast a spell with the smaller wand, and began to note down several figures in succession as the spell gave him readings.

Beside him, Potter was leaning back on his hands and twirling the pendant around in circles. It was maddening.

“Must you do that?” Draco asked, snapping the book closed and glaring at him.

“Keeps me focused,” Potter said, grinning widely up at Draco before he slipped the pendant back into his shirt and stood up. “Did it work?”

“I have the figures,” Draco tucked the book back into his shirt pocket and patted it carefully. “So, I can start the map now.”

“Pressure points, right?” Potter asked.

Draco felt a familiar spike of irritation in his forehead. “I liked you better when you were an imbecile,” he muttered.

Potter laughed. “Don’t be a twat. You never liked me at all, Malfoy.”

“I always did have good taste.”

He ignored Potter’s snort of derision and began to pack up his tools. “I’ll begin the map tonight, but I’d prefer not to try dismantling any part of the curse until we see what all the layers can do.”

“Of course.” Potter’s easy acquiescence was disturbing. “Any ideas so far what kind of curse it is?”

Potter’s tone was deliberately casual, but Draco could hear the note of longing behind the question. He stopped what he was doing and looked up. Potter’s face had reverted to the bitter mask Draco kept catching glances of, and it was all Draco could do not to demand answers.

“Not yet,” he said quietly. “But I will. We’ll solve this, Potter, I promise.”

It was a dangerous thing to make promises he didn’t know he could keep; more dangerous still when the one he was making them to was staring at him like he might actually believe them.

Before he could think of a way to take the words back, the room around them began to fade, distorting into a mess of grey and white streaks that eventually gave way to brown floorboards.

*

Draco groaned, pushing himself up from the floor and stretching out his stiff limbs. He felt Potter stirring behind him, and he had the strangest sensation of lost time, like there was a memory lingering just out of reach. But even though he knew he had been working inside the curse for nearly two hours, the last thing he could remember was the taste of that vile potion.

Potter pushed his hair out of his face and rubbed his cheek with a grimace.

“Little warning next time, Malfoy?” he asked, lip curling in disgust as he rubbed his temple. “I’d prefer not to die from fucking stupidity, if I can help it.”

Despite the acid in his words, Potter’s brow was furrowed in confusion, like he too was trying to remember something that didn’t make sense. They looked at one another, and Draco felt the strongest urge to reach out and comfort Potter. His hand twitched, and Potter’s eyes dropped to it, confusion giving way to something that looked awfully like fear.

Draco’s heart skipped, and in a moment of regression he fell back on the familiar.

“Then perhaps next time you might choose not to swim in a bathtub of Firewhiskey before attending such an important work meeting,” he said with a sneer. “Or does the precious Saviour not actually care about his friends as much as he professes to?”

He knew instantly that he had gone too far. The colour drained from Potter’s face, leaving behind tightly controlled rage. A distant part of his brain acknowledged that it was a testament to just how much Potter _did_ care that instead of responding, he simply turned and walked out, the door slamming behind him.

After a few seconds of frozen horror, Draco turned and punched the wall. It crunched satisfyingly beneath his knuckles, leaving a small indent of his strength behind. The skin was instantly grazed and bleeding, and Draco stared at it numbly, unable to reconcile the sensations flooding him because he couldn’t remember anything that had just happened, at least, not before he’d apparently ruined everything.

As his racing heart began to slow, Draco was left wondering why it felt like he’d just lost something very important.

*

Now confident that he could contain the curse if it exploded, Draco unwrapped the parcel that evening. He did it from a distance, well away from the protective circle of red chalk, and when the cardboard fell away in wispy threads he felt a surge of disappointment.

It was a box.

He had hoped the package might contain a clue towards the nature of the curse, but it would seem it was only further mystery.

The wooden chest had a shiny inbuilt lock, and Draco wasn’t going anywhere near that for all the galleons in Gringotts. With a sigh, he checked the shields around the circle and left the room. When he found himself at the liquor cabinet, staring uselessly at the lock whose key was still somewhere behind the armoire, he swore and left the apartment for Diagon Alley. He couldn’t very well drink at home, not after tearing into Potter for it. He’d go and have a civilized drink with company at _Xander’s,_ the new bar down the end of the strip.

The streets were covered in a light, dusty snow when he left, and he found himself thankful for the extra scarf he’d thought to grab on his way out the door. Since his apartment wasn’t far from the Leaky Cauldron and the entrance to Diagon Alley, he opted to walk instead of Apparating, mostly in the hopes that it would clear his head enough that he could make sense of the last few hours. His mind was a swirl of horrible, festering emotion, and if he couldn’t clear it with a walk at least he could be certain to drown it with alcohol.

He never claimed to be well adjusted.

Few people were out this late on a Tuesday, and the night descended around him in that quiet softness of new snow, making him feel like the only person living for miles. For a moment, he almost turned around and went home, unwilling to ruin the sensation with the sound of drunken revelry, but then thoughts of Potter crept into his mind and he almost ran the last few streets to the Leaky just to escape him.

The warmth of the Leaky settled over him in a burst of colour and sound the second he opened the door, and he managed to slow down enough to pass as a normal person instead of the increasing wreck he was becoming. Unfortunately, he hadn’t made it more than five steps towards the back entrance when he heard his name being called, and all illusions of a quiet night of sulking at _Xander’s_ slipped away.

“George,” he said, nodding at the redhead tucked into the corner booth. “Morgan. Enjoying dinner at the Leaky?”

George grimaced. “As much as we can at the moment.”

Draco inclined his head, unsurprised at the sombre atmosphere surrounding their table. Barring the solitude and poor choice of venue, they had probably had similar intentions to him, coming out tonight.

“I won’t disturb you.” Draco lifted his hand in farewell, but George made a noise of protest, and Morgan reached out to grasp his hand.

“Join us,” she said, and George nodded.

Draco was hard-pressed to deny the owner of such a welcoming smile, even if she wasn’t exactly his type and was remarkably more demonstrative than he was used to in acquaintances. Ignoring his usual voice of restraint and warning, he nodded, ordered a glass of wine from Tom at the bar, and sat down.

“We won’t insist on work-talk,” Morgan assured him. “Harry has already told us that it went well today and you’re making progress.”

Draco found himself both surprised and grateful, and then surprised again once he acknowledged that Potter would have to have mentioned this _after_ their argument, which meant that he was still holding Draco in at least semi-professional regard. And he didn’t look like he had mentioned their disagreement either.

“I do have one question,” George said sheepishly. “I don’t understand how you can know that at all if you can’t remember what happens while you’re working. That’s right, isn’t it?”

Draco took a sip of the wine—surprisingly good—and tried to think how best to sum up the experience without becoming too technical. “We can’t remember it, no,” he agreed. “In the past, curse breakers had to scrawl notes on their body, so that they could read it when they awoke from the trance. Fortunately, we’re not so backwards now, and we can take items in and out of the dream-state with us, so long as they’re on our person. I can see from my readings that we’ve succeeded in plotting the first—” he hesitated, “layer, for lack of a better word. Once we’ve plotted all the necessary points out, I can look at my notes, map out the curse and its constituents, and then dismantle it from the outside with relative safety. When the curse unravels, it triggers the last part of the identification spell, so our defences can come down and the barrier that the potion and the wards constructed between us and our memories will disappear. Then, we’ll remember what the trance looked like.” He allowed himself a small smile. “I have to say, I’m dying to know what it looks like.”

“Ah.” George nodded. “So, it’s a little like reverse engineering a tracking spell—you have to locate all markers before you can get to work on the whole.”

Draco blinked. “When did you all get so bloody intelligent?” he snapped before he could stop himself.

George burst into laughter, and Morgan choked on her drink.

“I think you weren’t really looking close enough, Malfoy,” George said, but the twinkle in his eyes showed he wasn’t really angry.

Draco considered how different they were now, even to when they had met in the shop just the other day. Something had changed.

The thought echoed in his mind, seeming poignant in a way that he couldn’t place. For a moment, he had a fleeting glimpse of a wall filled with gears. He shook his head, clearing the confusing image away.

“Yes, well,” he said, staring down into his wine glass. Abruptly, he looked up and asked the question that had been bothering him ever since this whole business began. “Why did Potter become an Unspeakable?”

George shrugged. “No one knows. It’s driving Ron crazy,” he broke off, his face a sudden mask of undisguised pain.

Draco felt certain he was intruding, but a pointed look from Morgan told him to stay seated. She entwined her fingers in George’s and squeezed gently, the two of them sharing a look of such deep affection Draco felt something hollow inside his chest cry out in longing.

“He’s stable,” she said softly, speaking to both of them. “And the Healers say there is no mind damage at this point in time. Draco and Harry will find the solution.”

Draco stared at her, wondering where George had met this lady. She was such a calm, steady presence—so unlike the chaos of their large family—that he couldn’t imagine the two of them even finding each other, let alone falling in love. But then, what did Draco know about love? Perhaps there was something to the old “opposites attract” adage after all.

“Where did you two meet?” he asked in an effort to change the subject.

Morgan smiled, and even George’s lips quirked.

“I, er,” she said, glancing at George. “I was chasing a pinwheel firework down the street.”

Draco’s eyes widened in alarm.

“A miniature one!” She clarified. “And modified to sing a terribly rowdy version of God Save the Queen as it went.” She gave an affected sigh. “My brother likes to tinker.”

“I’m still not allowed to meet him,” George said with a smirk.

“Of course, you’re _allowed_ to,” Morgan protested, rolling her eyes. “He’s just hard to pin down.”

“I think you’re just scared we’re going to make an even better pinwheel.”

Draco snickered into his wine, and just like that the soreness of Ron’s coma had passed. They settled into safer topics—the shop, Draco’s work overseas. Draco found himself enjoying both the wine and the company far more than he had expected, and by the time he was ready to go he was surprised to find the last patrons were leaving as well.

“You’re not so bad after all, Malfoy,” George said, clapping him on the back. “Harry was right.”

Draco staggered, certain that no one—not even Blaise—had ever done that to him before. He cleared his throat.

“You’re… surprisingly pleasant… as well,” he managed, ignoring George’s bellowing laughter and Morgan’s one-armed hug.

He waved them off as they Apparated away, and then began trudging through the drifting snow back to his apartment. It wasn’t until he was halfway home that the rest of George’s words filtered through, and he staggered to a halt, propped up against a freezing lamp post for support. What had Potter said about him? George hadn’t been talking about his work just now; he’d been talking about _him,_ as a person. Draco was sure of it.

_What had Potter said?_

The memory of Potter’s face when they’d last parted ways shoved its way into Draco’s mind. He dropped his head back against the lamppost and groaned. Whatever positive thing Potter _had_ said about him, he likely wasn’t saying it anymore.

“You fucking twat,” he hissed to himself. “You absolute, complete, bollocking, fucking—”

“Oi!” An upstairs window shoved loudly open and a muffled voice called down. “If you’re gonna have a bloody meltdown, mate, piss off and do it at home!”

“Swivel on it!” Draco snapped back, before pulling himself together and striding away, coat tails whipping around him.

*

When he answered the door the next morning, Draco made sure he had showered, groomed, and drunk a triple strength hangover potion. Even still, it felt as though Potter was eyeing him suspiciously.

“About yesterday,” Draco said, trying to work out how exactly an apology to Potter should sound. By all accounts, it was unfamiliar territory.

“Forget it.”

Potter pushed past him and strode straight to the workroom door.

Draco gaped after him indignantly. He was just about to insist Potter regain any manners he had once possessed, when he noticed that Potter was wearing the same clothing as yesterday. He frowned, wondering how to broach the question—or what the question might even be—but the workroom door was already banging shut, leaving him alone.

When he entered the room, he found Potter already sitting cross legged, staring mutely at the circle and presumably waiting for the potion.

“We said we need to trust each other, remember?” Draco snapped. “We can’t be fighting, or the curse can take advantage of our weaknesses.”

Potter looked up at him, and for a moment his eyes appeared dead. “I trust you,” he said, his voice filled with a sincerity that was at odds with his expression. Then, he added, “It doesn’t mean I have to like you.”

Draco spluttered. “How can I trust someone who looks like they want to stab me the second they’re offered a sharp object?”

Potter gave him a feral grin. “Don’t give me a sharp object.”

Before Draco could protest, he interrupted again.

“Malfoy, I promise I’m going to do everything I can to look out for both of us. We’re in this together. But I’m not going to pretend our relationship is something it isn’t. That’s why you wanted me as your anchor, isn’t it? Because you can trust that everything I say to you is honest, and because you don’t have to second guess anything I do?”

Draco mentally added “mind-reader” to the dubious list of things he guessed Unspeakables did.

“Yes,” he said reluctantly.

“Good. Now give me the potions.”

After a moment of silent arguing in his head, Draco fetched the two glasses and handed one to Potter, sitting down beside him. They drank in silence and lay back on the floor just before everything faded to black.

*

This time, the room materialised far quicker, and he didn’t have the aching head he’d had yesterday from the fall.

He did, however, have a painful mixture of conflicting memories. Everything from the dream-state came flooding back, slotting into space his brain hadn’t known was there.

Slowly, he began to remember everything he’d felt standing with Potter in this space yesterday. He remembered Potter’s confession—why he had become an Unspeakable—and the strange truce they had formed. It was like waking from a dream and realising everything you thought you felt was wrong, different. Except this was the dream, and out there was real.

He turned to face Potter and saw his own shock mirrored back at him.

“Malfoy,” Potter breathed, and Draco was certain he’d never heard his name said like that before. He ran a hand across his face. “Shit. I didn’t—” He broke off and laughed bitterly. “We really don’t remember any of this, do we?”

Draco shook his head mutely, and the words fell out like they were the most natural thing in the world, “I’m sorry I insulted you last night. I went too far. I didn’t mean to accuse you of abandoning your friends.”

Potter’s eyes widened in shock. “An apology?” His lip quirked. “I must be dreaming.”

Before Draco could make a quick retort, the smile fell away from Potter’s face.

“I’m sorry for acting like a dick, er, out there.” He waved a hand vaguely. “I knew you didn’t mean anything by it. I think I was just latching onto an excuse to sulk.”

“Ah, a play for more attention,” Draco said, nodding thoughtfully. “I should have guessed.”

The atmosphere was relaxed, teasing, and that alone would be enough to unsettle him because this was _Potter._ When had it become acceptable to make jokes with Potter? But that wasn’t the half of it, because inside Draco was seething with a turmoil of emotions he couldn’t name. He remembered the anger and bitterness that he felt outside of the dream-state, but as the minutes passed it was being overridden by the increasing sense of warmth and tentative curiosity that seemed to define their relationship in this space. He wondered if Potter felt it too.

He cleared his throat and took out his toolkit. “Since I’m inside its defences now, I should be able to get a little further today. I’m hoping to locate two pressure points, maybe even three.”

“Anything I can do to help?” Potter asked, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking awkwardly around the room. “It doesn’t take much attention to monitor the anchor, and I’ve got a bit of experience in locating nasty curses.”

His voice was casual, but something in it made Draco look up. His posture was stiff, the leather jacket sitting awkward and bulky on his shoulders. He remembered suddenly his confusion when Potter had walked in that morning.

“You’re wearing the same clothing,” he said. “I know your sense of taste is irreparably damaged, but you still show a tendency to shower regularly. Did something happen last night?”

He meant had something happened with Ron, but another meaning popped into his mind and his face suddenly flamed. Potter’s cheeks turned pink, and Draco wondered if it was too much to ask that the dream-state open up a pit for him to crawl into and die.

“No,” he said roughly, shaking his head. Their eyes caught briefly, and for one breathless moment Draco could have sworn Potter’s gaze was heated, staring into him with an intensity he’d only imagined before, on nights that he was particularly drunk and lonely. Then, Potter turned away. “Nothing happened.”

He paused and then seemed to slump forward. “Okay, fine, I’m not dealing with this too well, all right? And when you had a go at me for drinking on the job I ended up going to the Ministry and researching all night.” He gave a wry grin. “It was that, or drink another bottle of whiskey.”

“Did you find anything useful?” Draco asked, opting to ignore Potter’s vulnerable admission in the same way one might attempt to win over a wild animal by not looking at it straight on.

“No idea,” Potter admitted. “I couldn’t remember any of this, so I didn’t know what I was looking for, did I?” He looked around with a thoughtful expression. “Though, I kept wanting to read about wizard clocks, which in hindsight makes a lot of sense.”

“Wizard clocks?” Draco asked, taking out a box of fine purple powder from his toolkit and walking over to the area of the mechanism he had started on yesterday. “I thought Muggles had mechanical clocks as well.”

Potter joined him, his shoulder brushing against Draco’s arm so briefly Draco thought he might have imagined it.

“They do,” Potter said, “but wizard clocks monitor a lot more than just time. The Weasley’s clock keeps track of where each family member is, and I’ve seen Luna wear a watch that maps the moonrise. Muggle clocks definitely don’t do that.”

Draco stared at him askance. “What _do_ they monitor then?”

“Just time,” Potter said, chewing on his lip like he was holding back a laugh. “Just regular, old time.”

“Barbaric,” Draco breathed.

He unscrewed the lid of the container, took a pinch of the purple dust, and blew gently onto the largest gear.

One by one, a series of wheels lit up with a gentle, purple light until they were surrounded by an undulating strip of purple on all four walls.

“There’s our first pathway.” Draco couldn’t contain a smile. “I have to say, I had been imagining I would use this powder to illuminate the veins of a leaf, or the framework of a cupboard, or something equally simple to observe.”

Potter murmured something in agreement, but he was too busy taking note of the train of wheels to respond properly.

Draco drew his wand from its holster and muttered an incantation, one of the diagnostic charms he had cast many times on the parcel already. This time, instead of sending back a series of conflicting readings that put the curse into multiple categories of curse magic, it sent back a set of figures that Draco recognised instantly.

“It’s a compulsion charm,” he said, looking up as Potter’s eyes snapped to his. “That explains why I kept getting readings from the tacit branch—tacit curse magic covers anything that manipulates and controls the victim. I’ve never seen it used concurrently with the mercurial branch, but I guess we’ll find out how that works soon.” He selected another pot from the toolkit, this time of pink dust.

“Shall we try another?”

Potter smiled at him, bright and glorious, and for a second Draco’s heart stopped.

“Thank you,” Potter said. “I knew you could do it.”

Draco’s fingers, wrapped around the pot of pink powder, felt strangely numb, like he was floating a few inches above himself. “We’re not quite there yet,” he managed, his voice rasping strangely.

“But we will be.”

“How are you so certain?”

He wasn’t only asking one question, and he wondered if Potter knew it. How was he so certain Draco could do it? How was he so certain he _would_? How was he so certain that the two of them, here, could make this work without killing each other?

Potter’s eyes slid away for a second, nervous. “I had to research quite a lot when I was isolating the Horcrux. I didn’t understand what I was reading until I was halfway through, and then I couldn’t stop. I hadn’t known they’d seized it from you—I would never have guessed they’d taken it and refused to give it back.”

Draco frowned, trying to work out what Potter was babbling about, and then it hit him. Dread filled his stomach, and for a second he thought he might throw up.

“You read my journal.”

All his notes, every sick, desperate thought and memory of when Voldemort had been living with him. He’d written it down—anything to keep sane, to have some form of company—and then the Ministry had seized it all during his trial. They’d taken everything from him, every record of every dark act he and others had done.

It didn’t matter that it had only proven his innocence, his complete lack of control in every part of that years-long nightmare. It was his, his soul stripped bare, and Potter had read it all.

He tuned slowly back in to the sound of Potter’s voice, realising that he was still talking, droning on and on in an increasingly desperate sort of way.

“I would have stopped reading, Malfoy, honestly, except it was your journal that gave me the answers I needed. I couldn’t ignore it.”

Draco pinched the bridge of his nose. A throbbing headache had just started up in his temple.

“What answers? Potter, it was the desperate raving of a sixteen-year-old who thought he was going to die within weeks; how could it possibly help you?”

“The cabinet,” Potter said softly, and suddenly, terribly, it all made sense.

“You didn’t have to kill the Horcrux; it was already dead,” Draco said, his voice sounding weak even to his own ears. “You just had to remove it.”

It had taken him all year to work out what the cabinet was missing. A broken Vanishing Cabinet that Vanishes items into a state of perpetual limbo—he’d spent months looking at it from the wrong angle. He’d tried to repair the connection between the two, so that it stopped Vanishing things to the wrong place, but even once the connection was repaired it kept failing him.

Vanishing spells worked on the same principles as Apparition: destination, determination, deliberation. The destination for a paired cabinet was easy: the other half of the pair. But when one half of the cabinet had been operating with a new destination for so long, any determination to get back to the old way of doing things was gone. And recalcitrant cabinets who had gotten quite used to Vanishing things to undeterminable locations certainly weren’t willing to make deliberate decisions to return to such a rigid structure. It wasn’t until he’d given it a _reason_ to change course that it had finally started working again. Of course, that had meant enhancing the link between the pair so it was exciting and new, which didn’t exactly relate to Horcruxes.

If an ancient cabinet had proven so unwilling to cooperate, Draco could only imagine what it would be like trying to Vanish the residual debris of a Horcrux. An ordinary Vanishing spell would never have worked, and that thing had been in Potter’s body, in his blood. It wouldn’t want to leave, not without a damn good reason to go. Trying to give it a destination—trying to override its Dark will with your own determination and deliberate intent—would be near impossible.

And Potter had somehow used his rambling notes to come up with a solution? How was that possible? Unless he had done what Draco suspected he had. But it was so unlike Potter, so impossible to conceive…

Their eyes met, and Draco felt his face drain of colour at the expression he saw there.

“You made a pair.”

Slowly, Potter nodded. “Not a real one,” he insisted, and for a moment his eyes grew distant. “That’s… You don’t want to do that. I used the mangled cup to create an echo and drew the Horcrux out into that.”

The way Potter said it, it sounded so matter-of-fact, almost peaceful. Like lancing a wound. But Draco knew better.

“George said no one knows why you became an Unspeakable.”

Potter laughed bitterly. The remains of the mystery fell into place, and Draco decided he probably no longer had to wonder why Potter was all sharp edges and hollow stares, these days.

“I tried to tell Hermione once,” he said, looking down at the ground. “Right at the start, when I was certain I could still feel it inside me. She was horrified. She spent a full week researching everything she could get her hands on, and by the end she was in tears, terrified that I was going to die. No one’s ever been a Horcrux before. There’s not much research on it. I ended up lying to her and telling her I’d been diagnosed with a tropical fever, just so she’d stop worrying.”

Potter bent down suddenly and plucked another container of powder from the toolkit. “I’m glad I didn’t tell them. Once I realised what I’d have to do to get rid of it… well… you can imagine how they’d have reacted if they found out.”

Draco could. Potter had carried this with him, alone. No matter that he hadn’t needed to recreate the evil acts one was required to do to create a Horcrux—just creating the echo of such evil would be awful enough, letting it mix with your own magic, producing something so horrible, so twisted. Draco felt sick, and sicker still at the knowledge that Potter had done it alone, with the threat of failure and unknown consequence looming over him every step of the way.

Draco didn’t need to imagine what that felt like.

Potter unscrewed the lid from the container in his hand and studied the green dust inside. Draco thought that might be the end of the conversation, but just before he turned away, Potter looked up at him.

“I know you can do this because I know what you’re capable of, Malfoy,” Potter said, and in a voice loaded with meaning, continued, “and I know what you’re not. I know what you went through in that house. I’m sorry that I found out the way I did, but if I had to go back and do it all again, I would, because it got that thing out of me. I owe you for that.”

Draco gaped at him. After a long moment of silence, he said, “I give you permission to read my journal, Potter.”

The room seemed to hold its breath as they stared at one another, each surrounded by lonely memories best forgotten. After a moment, Potter reached out to clasp him on the shoulder. It was only brief, the barest touch of skin on fabric before he turned away, but it was like nothing Draco had ever felt before: warm and gentle and a little bit awkward, but all the more powerful because of it.

They stopped talking after that. Potter created a path of green cogs that twisted up most of the wall, and Draco discovered a pink pathway that circled the room several times. It was silent as they worked, Draco noting down the readings from the spell, and Potter monitoring the anchor to make sure they weren’t in danger. Draco felt like he was attuned to Potter’s every move, like every breath and every brush of their arms against each other was a conversation he’d never bothered to listen to before.

“That explains the psychical readings,” he murmured, once he’d noted down the final reading. “Not only does this curse contain a compulsion spell, but it alters your conscious state. It must be why Ron won’t wake up. If it had been part of the explosion, it should have passed by now, but since it’s lingering—”

Potter crossed the room in two strides and stood beside him, staring down at his notebook eagerly. “You mean the Healers need to search for an inhibitor? Like a tranquilizer dart or something?”

Draco dropped the notebook by his side and glared at him. “Can you stop doing that? It’s very disconcerting. If you wouldn’t mind just drooling and staring vacantly at the wall every now and then, I’d be so much more at ease.”

“Get over it, Malfoy,” Potter laughed, true relief infesting his voice, and then in a gesture Draco had no way of predicting, he picked Draco up and spun him around in a delighted circle.

“Put me down this instant!” Draco demanded, his heart giddy and light.

Potter did, but Draco almost wished he hadn’t, because when he slid down to the ground, Potter didn’t let him go as Draco thought he would, but pulled him closer instead. The room felt smaller than before, his skin hypersensitive to the slightest movement against it. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining the look in Potter’s eyes, because there was no way Potter could be looking at him like that, not when he wasn’t drunk.

Then, he felt the tug of the potion, warning him their dream was coming to an end.

Potter’s face twisted into something close to fear at the same moment Draco recalled the way the two of them had left off in the real world.

“Shit, do we have to go back?” Potter asked with a wry grin, stepping back nonetheless.

“I’d rather not,” Draco admitted.

He had to turn away from the look in Potter’s eyes, unable to comprehend exactly what he might be seeing—too scared that he was only seeing what he hoped for. He pulled out his notebook and wrote a message to himself: _check Weasley for psychical inhibitor._

The room began to shimmer and fade.

“See you on the other side, Potter,” he said, his lips twisting bitterly as their eyes caught and held.

*

It was smoother, this time, waking up in a seated position instead of slumped over on the cold floor. His limbs were still stiff, but they lacked the dull ache of injury. With a start, he realised he had slipped into a relaxed lean against Potter, and he pulled himself upright before it became obvious.

As Potter groaned and stretched beside him, Draco couldn’t help but feel he looked different. There was something about the hard set to his jaw that looked familiar now. Or… Draco frowned. Not familiar, but… recognisable. Something. Like there was a secret there that he just couldn’t quite remember. It made his chest ache, and for the second time in as many days he had to catch himself just before he reached out to hold Potter.

“Did we find anything?” Potter asked, standing up and dusting down his jeans without looking at Draco.

Draco pulled out his notebook and scanned it with surprise. “We found a lot,” he said, eyes widening. “In fact, I think we don’t have too much more to analyse. There’s a note here too. It says—”

He was interrupted by a tapping on the window. A large screech owl hovered on the sill, and Draco recognised it as one of the swift birds favoured by St Mungo's. His heart dropped into his stomach.

“Potter,” he began, but Potter had already opened the window and torn the note from the bird’s leg.

Draco fished around in his pocket for a treat and gave it to the indignant bird, who immediately flew away. A muffled sound of despair came from behind him, and he turned back to see Potter already halfway out the door.

“Wait,” he snapped. “What happened?”

“He’s having a seizure,” Potter yelled over his shoulder. “Can I still Apparate from the hallway?”

“Yes, I’ve added you permanently to the wards,” Draco answered. “You can Apparate from anywhere here, if you want. But, just wait a second, I have information.”

But Potter had already gone.

Draco made a growl of frustration and grabbed his coat. Stupid Potter and his inability to think for five seconds. He looked down at his hands and realised they were shaking. When had he started to care about a Weasley? He locked his front door behind him, shivering in the icy air of the hallway, and Apparated to St Mungo’s.

He wasn’t sure they’d let him in, since he wasn’t family, but as it happened it didn’t matter. Five steps into the foyer, and he found Potter pacing up and down in front of the entrance to the Spell Damage.

“Potter, _stop_ ,” Draco snarled, continuing before he could be interrupted. “He likely has an inhibitor—I left a note in my book. Can you get us into his room?”

“He’s in surgery.” Potter’s words sounded almost dead. “We can’t go in until he’s out. If he makes it out.”

To Draco’s horror, Potter’s voice broke on the final words. He wondered distantly if he was about to see him cry. The cold, clinical walls of St Mungos were oppressive and bleak; Draco could think of nowhere worse to spend your final days, lying in a coma before dying on a surgery table. At least there were no barbaric practices like in Muggle hospitals, with knives and skewers and whatever else they jabbed inside you, but it was a small relief.

“We need to get a message to the Healers,” Draco insisted, looking around for someone he could accost. “He’s probably been overexposed.”

They managed to flag down a Healer and express enough urgency that the Healer ran off immediately with the message. But that meant that all there was left to do was wait, and the atmosphere between the two of them was becoming increasingly stilted.

“What kind of inhibitor?” Potter asked suddenly, taking a seat on one of the wooden chairs lining the wall.

“I’m not sure.” Draco felt suddenly hesitant. “The note only said to look for an inhibitor, but the readings above it show that we discovered psychical tendencies in the curse. It means he’s likely under a sleeping spell, but since it has lasted longer than twenty-four hours, I strongly suspect there’s something attached to him that’s dragging it out.”

It was the first time they had approached anything close to a civil conversation since yesterday, and he felt the strangest sensation that he didn’t want to mess it up. He recalled George’s words from last night, and the painful certainty that he’d ruined it all—whatever _it_ was—before it had even begun. A younger Draco would have picked a fight with Potter just to spite himself and revel in his own misery. Older Draco was getting rather sick of his own bullshit.

He rustled in his pockets, searching for some spare sickles, and felt a rush of success when he found some.

“It sounds like we’re close to the end, then?” Potter asked before Draco could offer to get them hot chocolate or tea.

He made a noise of agreement. “We also found the source of the explosion. There are small mercurial readings, but they’re so negligible it looks like the explosion was only intended to draw attention.” He considered that properly for the first time, feeling suddenly lighter at what that news meant. “Which is an excellent result, Potter; it means that the explosion hasn’t done any curse damage at all. Whatever the curse’s purpose, I’d bet my money pouch that it lies within the box.”

“The box?” Potter frowned, and Draco remembered that they hadn’t had a chance to discuss that nature of the package.

“Merlin, you really were sulking when you came into the workroom this morning, weren’t you?” Draco drawled. “You didn’t even notice the package was unwrapped.”

Potter glared at him mutely but didn’t respond.

Remembering his recent determination to keep things civil between the two of them, Draco let go of his rising ire and held out the Sickles in his palm like an offering. They glinted in the bright light of the hospital waiting room, and Potter stared at them in confusion.

“I’m buying tea,” Draco said, figuring that if he kept his sentences as short as possible, he couldn’t fit any accidental insults into them. “Would you like some?”

Potter opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. Then, he looked at Draco with an odd expression that made Draco’s heart race.

Finally, he nodded, and Draco escaped.

On his way back, two steaming cups of tea in his hands, he bumped into George and Morgan.

“Two teas, one hot chocolate, and one black coffee,” George was muttering repeatedly, before he realised that Draco was blocking his path. “Oh, Malfoy. How long do you think Percy will complain if I bring him a hot chocolate with extra marshmallows instead of his black coffee? He managed fifty minutes one time, but that was without the marshmallows. I reckon I can get him up to two hours.”

Draco blinked, trying to process what response would be required. “Why not try for three?” he asked faintly.

George grinned. “You’re on.”

He clapped Draco on the back, ignoring Morgan’s eye roll, and recommenced his mutterings.

“Two teas, two hot chocolates, extra marshmallows and whipped cream if they’ve got it.”

Draco shook his head and walked back into the waiting room, where he found most of the Weasley clan huddled around Potter like a red-headed Protego. He slid through a gap between Ginny and Fleur, nodded briefly to Granger, and handed Potter his tea. He wanted to ask if all Weasley’s grieved like there was a punch-line waiting to happen, but a quick glance at the rest of their solemn faces answered the question for him.

Potter’s fingers brushed against his as he took the paper cup, and Draco felt a rise of irritation at the way it made his heart leap. He sat down in his surprisingly still vacant seat and marvelled at how the strange circumstances of the last three days had led to such an unpredictable moment.

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t seen Potter since school. When Potter had been an Auror, they had run into each other with alarming frequency. If Potter was in a good mood, they’d trade insults; if he was in a bad mood, it would mean a grunt and a rude shove which Draco coolly and maturely ignored, right before hexing him when his back was turned.

It was one of the reasons that Potter’s promotion had bothered him so much; why hadn’t he seen it coming? He’d put Potter’s increasing surliness since Hogwarts down to the general brutish demeanour that seemed to go with his job description, but now that Potter had demonstrated such unprecedented depth of intelligence and skill, Draco was at a loss. It was clear now that he wasn’t like the other Ministry-approved thugs—boorish and mean simply because their entire life’s purpose centred on running around outside and chasing down the latest target. So, why then was he so much less cocky than the Potter he remembered at Hogwarts? And how had Draco underestimated him so poorly?

The sound of someone complaining loudly and indignantly about the quantity of marshmallows in his cup broke through Draco’s thoughts, and he returned to the present. He felt Potter shift beside him, glancing up before quickly looking back down again at his cup.

Draco waited. In a few moments, his patience was rewarded.

“I’m sorry,” Potter said quietly, so that only he could hear. “I think I’ve been a bit… difficult to get along with the last couple of days.”

Draco snorted. “Is that what you call it?”

Potter glared at him, and Draco forced himself to remain quiet lest he ruin this momentous occasion.

“You haven’t exactly been a pleasure to talk to, yourself,” he snapped, still under his breath.

“I have been the pillar of polite conversation, considering our circumstances.” Draco was affronted.

“You’ve been an arse.”

“So have you.”

Potter pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. It was obvious he was trying to be civil, and since this was what Draco had been waiting for all along, he made himself reluctantly put aside the sarcastic retort that was on the tip of his tongue.

“It has been a stressful time for everyone,” Draco conceded. “Let’s just agree to move forward.”

It was remarkable, how easy it was to use the veil of professionalism to mask even the most long-standing of disagreements. He just had squash the tiny part of him that said the day was only worthwhile if he’d managed to insult Potter in three different ways, and remind himself that there were more important things than winning. Apparently.

It was nonetheless surprising when Potter nodded, and it forced Draco’s thoughts to return, once again, to the baffling mystery that was Unspeakable Potter.

“He’s awake and doing well,” a pleasant voice interrupted them, and all the conversation fell quiet as the family turned, as one, to the nurse.

Then, it was a mad rush of everyone talking at once, getting in each other’s way, insisting they be the first to see him. Draco fell back, having no desire to see Weasley at all, and wanting only to speak to the nurse. After a moment, it was determined that Molly, Arthur, and Granger would be the first, and then, if he was up to it, the others would file in two at a time.

Potter’s eyes met his through the crowd, and he felt a jolt of something uncertain race through him, like maybe he was meant to be there with him. He was hit again by the strange thought that there was something he and Potter knew, something that was theirs alone, but he just couldn’t quite grasp a hold of it.

When the family had dispersed, Draco asked the nurse if he could speak to the Healer in charge. He felt Potter join him as they were led down the corridor to a small office, its door decorated in festive tinsel and marked with a wreath in the centre.

A tall woman with a fierce pixie-cut rose to meet them.

“I was just about to find you,” she said with a warm smile. “You two are in charge of the case, I presume?”

Potter nodded, and the woman gestured for them to sit down. “Thanks to your message, Mr. Malfoy, we were able to locate the source of Mr. Weasley’s mysterious illness.” She held up a small, metal object, the size of a pea.

Draco felt his knees give a little at the knowledge that they had done it, they had achieved something that was not only unusual in current theory, but that had quite possibly saved a life. Potter made a small noise beside him, but Draco politely ignored it.

He took the tiny bead and examined it. Up close, he could see it was covered in hooked spines, presumably to latch onto the victim. Likely, it had burst into the room with the initial explosion, although Draco wondered what possible purpose that could serve, since it rendered the recipient unconscious before they had a chance to open the package.

Potter moved closer to him, examining the bead over his shoulder. He brought with him the smell of pine needles and cinnamon.

“Have you been rolling around in Christmas trees?” Draco asked, wrinkling his nose.

It wasn’t that the smell was bad; he was disgusted that it smelled so nice. He wanted to lean into Potter and just breathe in the scent of his collar.

Potter looked at him oddly, before reaching out to take the inhibitor and turn it over in his palm. “Funnily enough, no. Though I did just buy mine. Why? Do I smell like a tree?”

“Something like that.”

“The inhibitor was found just under Mr Weasley’s armpit,” the Healer informed them. “Quite easy to miss in the initial testing. We’re lucky we found it when we did, as I’m certain it was responsible for the febrile convulsion. Typically, we see them in children rather than adults, but as we know, this is not a normal case. As soon as it was removed, Mr Weasley began to respond to treatment—rather quickly, I might add.”

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Potter asked, before casting a couple of protection charms over the bead and slipping it carefully into his shirt pocket.

“Never.” Her eyes turned grim. “We’d like to keep the patient for another day, just to monitor him since this case is so unusual. At this stage, there is no indication of long-term damage.”

But there could be. Draco didn’t need to hear her say it aloud to know the danger. They said goodbye to the Healer, but Potter stopped him in the corridor.

“I’ve read about these before,” he said quietly. “There’s a diagram in one of our records; I’m fairly sure it matches this exactly. I can check it out later tonight.”

Now that he was looking closely, Draco could see how bloodshot Potter’s eyes were. There were dark circles underneath them, and although he was alert, his body seemed to sag.

“As much as offering self-care suggestions to you goes against every ounce of free will in my body,” Draco said with a sigh. “Don’t you think you should sleep instead? The urgency has disappeared—Weasley is awake. You’re of no use to me if you’re falling asleep on the job.”

Potter raised an eyebrow. “That really took a lot out of you, didn’t it?”

“You have no idea.”

He gave a sigh and scratched the back of his head, staring distantly at the far end of the corridor, where the Weasleys waited.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said reluctantly. “We don’t want to rush this.”

“Precisely,” Draco agreed.

They met up with the Weasleys again, and before Draco knew it he was being shepherded into the hospital room with Potter. He tried to object, but it sounded rude, and by that point it was already too late.

Draco had always hated the smell of St Mungo’s. It was worse in the actual rooms; something about the spell residue and stench of varying ailments and curses combined together to produce something potent and raw. It made him think of Aunt Bellatrix, which came of no real surprise but still sent waves of nausea running through him every time.

He came to a halt at the foot of Ron’s bed and resisted the urge to shuffle his feet like an awkward schoolboy.

“Malfoy,” Ron said slowly. “Mum told me you were working with Harry on the case.”

“Wonders never cease,” he said by way of agreement.

Potter snorted, and then to Draco’s shock said, “Malfoy figured out you had the inhibitor. It’s thanks to him you’re awake.”

The room fell awkwardly silent. Potter stared mulishly at Ron, some kind of wordless communication happening between them, while Draco discretely but firmly mutilated his palm with his nails to distract himself from the possibility of just Apparating out of this whole situation.

“Er,” Ron said finally, looking at the bedsheets. “Thanks, Malfoy.”

“Technically, it could have been Potter,” Draco suggested, making a split-second decision to trade the glow of praise for the chance of undoing the new and terrifyingly friendly way that Ron was now looking at him. “It was only a note from the dream-state—we don’t know who discovered it.”

“But you weren’t the one walking off and refusing to listen,” Potter said, and Draco felt suddenly lightheaded.

He didn’t say anything to that, and as he watched them he found it felt oddly as if he were standing in the wings of a stage, eyes drawn to the spotlight. The two men before him were nothing like the children he had known, always in each other’s pockets, sharing inside jokes without even needing to communicate. There was something stilted between the two of them now.

Draco had thought Potter’s infuriating mood swings were something that only happened around him, like Potter was so conflicted by the need to be civil to Draco whilst simultaneously wanting to slam his face into a brick wall that it kept leaking out in fits of petulance. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

“Have you eaten yet?” Potter asked. “I can get you something from outside, if you like. No need to eat this slop.”

“Nah, it’s all right, mate,” Ron insisted, talking over Potter a little. “Mum’s bringing me something, and you know how she is. It’ll be so much I’ll probably have to share it with the whole ward or something.”

Potter laughed, a little broken, and they fell silent. Just when Draco couldn’t stand it any longer and was about to make his excuses, they both started speaking at once.

“I’m glad you’re—”

“It’s really good to see—”

Draco closed his eyes against the painful scene and only opened them again once they were saying good bye.

“See ya, Malfoy,” Ron said, catching his eye.

For a second, he thought there might be something there—a question, a plea. But he didn’t speak Gryffindor and he was far too tired for this shit any longer. Besides, it was late and he was probably imagining it.

He lifted a hand in farewell and followed Potter out into the corridor, just as Percy and Ginny passed by them.

“ _Five_ marshmallows,” Percy muttered, while Ginny covered her mouth with her hand and nodded very seriously. “Who puts five marshmallows in _anything_?”

“Perhaps they thought you might want to eat your hot chocolate instead of drinking it,” she remarked thoughtfully.

Their conversation faded into the background, and Draco pulled Potter aside before they reached the rest of the clan.

“I’m going to leave now,” he said, trying to ignore the way Potter seemed more distant than before. “We’ll keep working the day after tomorrow, unless you have any objections?”

Potter ran a hand through his hair, obviously reluctant to waste a day, but even as he tried to argue it, he was yawning. The bustle of the hospital seemed to grow quiet around them as Potter deliberated. Draco found himself strangely fascinated by the set of his jaw, the small furrow of concern between his brows. It was like he was staring at someone new. He wondered if Potter still confided in Weasley and Granger the way he’d used to at Hogwarts, because he couldn’t imagine the man in front of him confiding in anyone.

Oddly, Draco found himself wishing Potter would confide in him. The confusing mess of animosity and competition that had always stood between them began to melt away, leaving behind something familiar. It was like he was eleven again, sitting at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall at breakfast, head still foggy with sleep. The hospital walls faded, and once again he was staring across at the vibrant, laughing, messy-haired boy with a longing that could only exist in those moments between sleep and awake when he couldn’t quite remember his father’s expectations and the pressure of the indefinable role he was expected to play.

He waited for the bubble to burst, for the fear and uncertainty of being a Malfoy to come seeping back in, but it never came. He was an adult now, and he’d left all of that behind him.

But the messy-haired boy wasn’t laughing anymore, and Draco wanted to know why.

With a growing sense of horror, Draco began to recognise the complicated swirl of emotion inside him. The need he kept feeling to reach out to Potter, to comfort him, began to make an awful sort of sense. He had to get out of here before Potter noticed.

“I have to go,” he said, and turned swiftly on his heel before Potter could say anything.

He thought he heard a confused sound behind him, but he ignored it and kept his eyes straight ahead at the foyer doors until all he could see was the twinkling Christmas lights casting a soft glow into the night.


	3. Chapter Three

In retrospect, he was surprised it had taken him this long to realise he was falling in love with Potter; he had only ever been a hair’s breadth away from it in the first place.

Still, it was horribly annoying to discover that he was becoming less distracted by Potter’s uniquely wild form of attractiveness, and more distracted by… well… him, just him. It was disgusting, and Draco tried to push it from his mind.

The decorations had been out for weeks in Diagon Alley, but now that the first of December was behind them, the feverish excitement of the place seemed to have exploded all around them. The tinsel that lined the lampposts was lit with tiny lights that sparkled against the falling snow, and enchanted snowballs could be seen bobbing along behind children as they darted through the crowd after unsuspecting friends.

Draco wasn’t even bothered by the sound of carolling in the distance, though he had grown up in a household that found street choirs awfully pedestrian. As a child, he had secretly loved the carollers that went from door to door, and he used to find any excuse to linger by them when they came to Diagon Alley. Looking back and remembering the fond smile his mother would give him as he stopped to tie his shoelace or point into a conveniently-placed shop window, he had a feeling he possibly hadn’t been as discrete as he’d attempted.

Even the knowledge that he was doing something so stupid and irreversible as pining after the impossible wasn’t enough to completely ruin his mood, though it was making him more introspective than normal. He wondered if, had he been able to avoid this curse business and live his life with a continued distance from Potter, would he have been able to avoid this realisation? Or was it simply one of those things that had a sinking inevitability to it? Perhaps he had only ever been living on borrowed ignorance, and now his stash had run out.

Or, perhaps being surrounded by laughter and love was turning him into a sentimental twat, and as soon as they parted ways he would fall back into his blissful life of bachelorhood.

Even he snorted at the blatant lie in that one, startling a resting owl on the sign beside him into taking flight and showering him with cold droplets of snow that he probably deserved. His life was a mess. But then, he’d been given the chance to study an area in his field that no witch or wizard had been given for hundreds of years, and in return, he just had to take the teensy tiny problem of developing a crush on the least available wizard of his generation. Surely, it was worth it.

He turned into Flourish and Blotts and began to peruse the shelves for a gift for his mother. She was becoming increasingly difficult to buy for, as her hobbies turned more and more eclectic. Ever since Lucius had passed away, every year had been a step further down the path of mindless distraction. Last year had been her obsession with pottery. He lost track of the number of sculpture books and materials she had acquired, although he had to admit she had produced some lovely clay peacocks.

This year, he was fairly certain her obsession had turned to bee-keeping, which Draco was at least seventy percent sure she had chosen mostly for shock value. Not that he’d tell her that, of course.

As he browsed the shelves, he heard some children burst into the shop, bringing icy wind whirling in with them for a split second before it hit the shop’s warming charm and fell away.

“Did you see the squid slippers?” The young girl burst out, lowering her voice quickly as the door closed and muffled the sound of the bustling alley. “They puff out black smoke so no one can see you if you need to run away quickly!”

“No one’s running anywhere fast in those slippers.” The boy laughed. “They’ve got tentacles for Merlin’s sake.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “Duh, that’s because the tentacles have a hovering charm, like on a baby broom, so you can get away faster.”

“Oh, no way!” The boy’s eyes widened. “We have to get them! Filch’ll never catch us now!”

Draco smirked to himself, hiding it behind the cover of a book titled _Buzy Bees,_ which he wanted to purchase simply to watch his mother twitch. They had to be talking about Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. He couldn’t imagine any other place that was cashing in on the idea of the Giant Squid as a marketing ploy.

He remembered suddenly that he still hadn’t bought anything for Millicent’s boys, so he quickly made his purchases—including _Buzy Bees_ —and left the shop, intending to head straight for the Weasley store. He barely made it five paces before the ground shook with a force so strong he had to hold onto the lamp post beside him lest he fall straight back onto his arse. When the smoke had cleared, his eyes fell straight on the source of the explosion, and before he knew it he was already running, shoving his way through the crowd until he fell through the door of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes with his wand outstretched.

It was as if he had crossed into another dimension. The inside of the shop was caught in some kind of time spell, full of gently floating debris that drifted ever so slowly upwards, like it was still in the process of exploding at a very, very slow pace. Through the haze of smoke that curled out of the workroom door, Draco caught sight of George Weasley, suspended in mid-air and surrounded by gently floating pieces of scorched paper and cardboard.

He shoved his way into the room, and it was like walking through quicksand. Every step caught in the air, and he felt the overwhelming urge to just forget it all, fall over, and sleep. With a massive effort, he pushed forward and stumbled slowly to the back of the room.

He must have grunted or something, because Morgan stuck her head around the doorway—moving at a speed that seemed, comparatively, lightning fast—and made a noise of comprehension. She waved her hand at him, and suddenly he could move again.

“What was that spell?” he asked her, trying to catch his breath as he practically fell into the room. “I’ve never seen such a time delay!”

“Oh, just a bubble charm,” she muttered, running a hand through her hair and spinning around to examine all four corners of the shop. There was a faint note of hysteria in her eyes, but she was remaining calm on the outside. Draco was impressed. “I think I’ve removed everyone from the path of danger. Can you help me bring George out of the explosion?”

“Bring George out of the—” Draco repeated weakly, before he shook his head and just decided to go with it.

Together, they reached up and tugged George down, out of the air, until he was lying passively on the ground. His eyes were shut, and Draco decided the force of the explosion must have already knocked him unconscious. While Morgan checked the rest of the shop, Draco ran his fingers across George’s neck and chest where the explosion had torn his shirt, searching for a tiny bump of metal. After a moment, he found it buried in the skin above his collar bone. He plucked it free and stood aside.

When they were certain no one was in any danger, Morgan waved her hands again, and the store exploded once more into sound and motion, the echo of the explosion ringing in their ears.

“Where’s the package?” Draco asked, just as several Aurors Apparated into the building, followed immediately by Potter.

His stomach gave a little jolt at the sight of him, but he ignored it in favour of the undoubtedly more important issues at hand. Besides, the entire endeavour was futile; the two of them had nothing in common.

While Potter was busy giving orders and securing the area, Draco wrapped the package in several layers of charms and vanished it to his workroom where he knew it would be safe. He didn’t need to unwrap it this time; the explosion had taken care of that. The box was exactly the same as the first one, right down to the faint design of leaves along the border. It didn’t make sense. Why send the recipient to sleep before they could open the box?

He looked up, and his eyes met Potter’s. They were just as blood shot as last night, still rimmed with black, and Draco wondered if, rather than get a good night’s rest, Potter had even slept at all.

“Meet me at mine,” Potter said, his expression blanker than Draco had ever seen them.

“Right,” Draco said, the word masked by the sound of Potter Apparating away.

Taking a deep breath, Draco followed.

*

Draco knew for a fact that Potter had Muggle electricity installed in his flat, and yet when he arrived in the fading twilight, the place was completely dark. He hammered on the door for several minutes, a rising sense of panic demanding that he locate Potter immediately and put an end to this curse business once and for all. Just before he could become truly worried, Potter opened the door and glared at him.

“The wards are down for you, Malfoy. You could have just Apparated straight in.”

“Oh,” Draco murmured, too relieved to see with his own eyes that Potter wasn’t in the middle of doing something rash and stupid. Probably. “Forgive me for attempting a little courtesy. Potter, do you really live like this?”

The first night he had come here, he’d been in too much of a state to take it in, but now he was seeing everything for the second time, and it was just as bleak as he’d thought. There was hardly any furniture, and what was there was old and worn. It was as if Potter never entertained at all, and he’d filled the flat with the least amount of furniture he could possibly get by with.

The curtains were pulled shut, and even with the faint light Draco could now see coming from what must be Potter’s study, the place felt gloomy and uninhabited. It felt haunted, but not in the wizarding sense, where you could talk and laugh with the ghosts—it felt Muggle haunted, where your every step was shadowed by an unknown creature, sapping your strength and sanity when you least expected it. Draco had a brief, delirious thought that it was haunted by Potter.

“Is now really the time?” Potter snapped, leading the way into the study.

“Is there ever a good time to admit you’re failing at life?” Draco retorted. “I thought I had demons, Potter, but at least they live in a dust-free environment.”

Potter rounded on him so quickly he took a step backward. There was a fire in his eyes that Draco had never seen before. It wasn’t like the righteous fury of his teenage years; it was bitter and angry and achingly familiar.

“My family is in danger, Malfoy,” he spat. “And you’re still spewing petty bullshit. I thought you’d changed. I thought you might have—” he broke off, turning away to run a hand through his hair before speaking again to the wall. “It takes years to become an Unspeakable, you know. And you get to see a lot of shit along the way. My work— My work touches on curses a lot.”

Draco felt his blood run cold, a sense of foreboding creeping up his spine.

“You know, I genuinely thought—” he broke off again and turned back. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. Can we do this, Malfoy? Can we finish this without resorting to stupid little fights and insults?”

The way Potter was reacting didn’t make sense. He was so highly strung, so quick to anger. It was like there was something Draco didn’t know, something that was making Potter feel let down or frustrated, but he couldn’t begin to fathom what it might be. And what was all that crap Potter was saying about knowing things, knowing about curses?

“You’re being awfully obtuse, Potter,” he drawled, apprehension still crawling icy fingers along his back. “Why don’t you just come out with whatever it is you’re hiding, and we’ll be done with it.”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“Bull _shit_. You’re acting like this is the first time you’ve ever met me. For all that you’re a sanctimonious twat, Potter, you’ve never let me get under your skin like this before. What has you so worked up that you can’t even be in the same room as me?”

“You cried when you fixed the cabinet,” Potter snapped, and Draco suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe. “You walked through, spoke to Borgin, then came back and cried. I read it all in your journal and for once I really, truly understood what you went through with Voldemort. I thought you’d changed, but you’re still the same little git you’ve always been, aren’t you?”

For long moments, Draco didn’t speak. Potter’s face was white, and Draco thought he saw a twinge of regret pass across his features, but he didn’t care. All his secrets—somehow, Potter had read them. How had he got his hands on his journal?

Then, he remembered: of course, the Ministry had seized everything—but he had never thought someone he knew would read it. Potter knew what Draco had done, what had been done to him. It felt like everything inside Draco had been stirred up, scraped out, and laid down for everyone to see. He was hollow, and all because Potter couldn’t differentiate between brutal honesty and genuine evil.

Well, if he wasn’t going to bother to look closely, Draco wasn’t going to help him. He swallowed down the bitter rage rising inside him and turned away.

“Are you done?” he asked, his voice chillingly cold.

Potter’s breath was ragged. “You’re not going to defend yourself?” The words sounded almost like a plea.

“Why bother? The judgement has been passed.” Draco moved into the room, eying the pile of books on the desk. “Is that why I’m here? I presume they contain information on the inhibitor.”

He could still hear Potter breathing behind him, and he distantly acknowledged that, for the first time, he had truly unnerved him.

“Malfoy,” he began.

“Don’t!” Draco whirled around and glared at him. “You’ve said your part, now do as you like to so eloquently put it—shove a sock in it. What am I looking at?”

After a moment, Potter pointed silently at the top most page of the open book, where a diagram of the metal inhibitor took up one corner of the page. Draco read it quickly, sucking in a breath as he did so.

“They discovered these at _Stonehenge_?” he breathed. “What in Merlin’s name does that overblown, sorry excuse for a mystery have to do with anything? It was just some drunk wizards out for a joke on the Muggles, I guarantee it.”

“They still don’t know what the inhibitor is,” Potter admitted, his voice oddly subdued. “What it did to Ron is the most information we have on it.”

“Is everyone from the shop today safe?”

“Yeah, no one’s hurt.”

Draco thought carefully before responding. “I don’t think it wise for us to work on the curse tonight or tomorrow. As much it would appear the danger is increasing, I fear we have let ourselves grow too volatile tonight to be of any use.”

“Malfoy, you don’t need to go all stilted and formal,” Potter tried. “Look, I’m sorry how that came out. It’s not the whole story. I can tell you what—”

“Don’t presume to tell me how I may or may not act around you,” Draco spat, his words becoming more clearly enunciated the angrier he got. “We are work colleagues, and we will remain in a civil arrangement until this endeavour is over.” He turned to leave, and then paused. “And for what it’s worth, Potter. I genuinely thought you might have changed too—I thought it possible we could have ended up friends after this.”

_Or more_ , he admitted to himself for the first time.

Potter made a small sound in the back of his throat, and Draco was absurdly proud his own voice had remained steady.

Before Potter could say anything more, Draco Disapparated, the room fading out of sight like a ghost.

*

Wrapping Christmas presents was always a sober affair for Draco. He tried to mask it by inviting Pansy into the whole saga, drowning them out in the most hideous wrapping paper he could find, and consuming goblet after goblet of mulled wine. This year, however, Pansy was unavailable, and there was nothing to distract him from the painful reminder that each carefully selected gift was a farce.

“Cufflinks for Blaise,” Draco muttered, picking the tissue-paper-clad parcel up from the corner and eyeing it with distaste. “Made from genuine meteorite.”

He glared at the offending item for several moments more before knocking back his glass of mulled wine and summoning the bottle of Firewhiskey to replace it.

“I may as well just hand him a bloody mirror and be done with it, for all he’s going to care about these,” he snarled, tossing the parcel onto the pre-cut piece of wrapping paper he’d selected—lime green with tiny cherubs fluttering across every square of space. He affected a preposterous tone, pushing aside the growing realisation that he was far drunker than he meant to be. “Why, thank you, Draco. I don’t believe you’ve ever bought me a meaningless accessory before. How very kind and thoughtful of you. You must think so highly of my intelligence.”

It wasn’t just the whole Pureblood tendency to show affection with distance—or express love with a stern frown—that bothered him. It wasn’t even the heightened importance placed upon handcrafted and fragile items, which Draco had quietly abhorred ever since the days of being gifted glass sculptures when all he wanted was a set of bludgers and a good, hard stick.

It was the way that, with every year that passed, he felt like he knew his friends less and less. It was the way that he couldn’t quite remember if Pansy was following Parisian fashion or if she was still fascinated with a more Moroccan-inspired colour palette these days—not because she hadn’t told him, but because he saw her so infrequently he could no longer keep up. It was the way Blaise would include little tidbits about his latest conquests in his letters, but by the time Draco saw him he was always at least three stories behind.

He flicked his wand so that the edges of the paper sprung up around the package, sealing themselves in place. Without Pansy here, he wasn’t even in the mood to do it by hand, jokingly complaining about paper cuts and sticking pieces of festive tape to each other when they turned the other way. He stared down at the pile of unwrapped gifts spread out on the coffee table for several long moments. Then, he took a long, bitter pull from the Firewhiskey bottle and sent the whole lot into a wrapping frenzy with a swish of his wand.

“Bloody waste of time.”

He fell back against the couch and closed his eyes. Unbidden, his thoughts turned to Potter and what it would be like if he was here with him. He imagined Potter staring at him from across the pile of presents, eyes bright and cheeks flushed from the wine. He pictured sending tiny pieces of tape flying across the room, sticking themselves to Potter while he spun in a circle trying to pull them off.

It made him laugh, and then his imagination had Potter turn to him, eyes dark and heated just like the memory of that one night when he had seen behind the walls to the broken man beneath, when he had seen what it might be like to know him in a different way. Before he knew it, his cock was hard and his thoughts were running wild with images of Potter bent over the couch, shirt unbuttoned and half caught up in Draco’s grip as he thrust inside him, slow and hard.

His eyes snapped open, and with the careful, deliberate grace of the utterly smashed, he set the Firewhiskey down on the coffee table, out of reach. Even in his imagination, he ought to know better. That wasn’t how this scene with Potter would go. No, because Potter was convinced that Draco was an arsehole. He was certain that despite all the painful lessons of Draco’s youth, the fact that he was blunt and snide meant that Draco hadn’t learned a goddamn thing, that he was still the idiotic sixteen-year-old eager for his Father’s approval. And yes, all right, perhaps his sense of humor was a little sharp, and maybe he sometimes took a joke too far, but that was just _him_ , and he wasn’t going to change that just because certain Gryffindors had unreasonable expectations about the way that people should act in public.

Draco had tried to change. And along with that attempt had come the realisation that, while his false approval and simpering smiles might make the people around him comfortable, concealing an entire part of himself just made him fucking miserable. If Potter had even the slightest capacity to look beyond his own nose, he would have realised that Draco _was_ putting in every effort to work together. He was a professional, and, personal feelings towards Potter aside, he intended to act as such. But it was unreasonable to expect his entire personality to change.

Draco sighed and began the slow process of packing up the paper and tape. He tucked the festive present toppers of tinsel and ribbon back into their box, and then stacked the whole thing inside the embroidered footstool by the fire. It was one of the few things he had taken from the Manor when he had moved out. His mother had always hated it, having a particular distaste for tapestry-style artwork that depicted bustling, hectic scenes, but Draco loved it.

Stitched lovingly by some kooky, ancient relative who had shunned the unwritten Malfoy code that said one must not enjoy anything, ever, it was the brightest piece of furniture he could recall seeing in his childhood home, and every time he looked at it, he found some new detail hidden in the artwork. Today, his eyes were drawn to the children playing by the town Christmas tree. They were crowded around a small, wooden chest, as someone dressed as Santa Claus reached inside to select their gifts.

It made Draco smile, though the feeling was bittersweet. He couldn’t imagine any of those gifts contained a meteorite cufflink or a poor compromise in the form of a bright orange silk scarf from Paris. In the end, the children probably wouldn’t even care about the gifts—they had each other, and they would spend the day sharing whatever toys they had been given and enjoying each other’s company.

He ran his fingers across the tiny, embroidered chest. It was satiny smooth, even after all these years. He frowned; something was bothering him. It was something about the chest and gifts inside it—he felt if he could just lay his finger on it, everything would fall into place.

He closed his eyes and thought, but all he could see were strange flashes of clockwork and one very clear, very intense image of Potter staring at him like he had that night, but in a different space entirely. The light was gentle, softening Potter’s features and making his lips look full and dark, but Draco had no memory of this and it was giving him a headache just trying to hold onto the picture.

Massaging his temple, he tried to think once more of the box and the carefully wrapped gifts inside. He felt a surge of curiosity, but even as the box morphed into the cursed package, his curiosity remained warm and safe.

His eyes snapped open as his thoughts clicked into place. The explosion that had caught Ron was only designed to draw attention, and the inhibitor had already been dispensed. While there could certainly be more inhibitors, it was nothing that a shield charm couldn’t protect them from, which meant that every aspect of the curse that they had so far identified was no longer a threat.

And the nature of the item made it very clear what the curse’s purpose was: something was inside the box, and unlike obligatory gifts and misguided festive cheer, this _something_ was likely the main event. Draco had no way of knowing how much longer they would have to spend in the dream-state, identifying all the constituents of the curse. With any luck, they were close, but he didn’t _know_ that for sure, and whoever was sending these items wasn’t showing any signs of stopping. They could keep going at a snail’s pace and hope that no one else got hurt, or they could ward the chest and open the box.

The only problem was that by opening the box, they would alter the state of the curse. The carefully maintained and isolated environment that the identification spell relied on would be ruined, and it would be too dangerous for them to re-enter the Ether and conclude their study. They would no longer be able to complete the identification spell and unravel the curse, which meant that the wards around the Pensieve wouldn’t deactivate.

Their memories would be lost.

But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became. This curse had never made sense, not from the start. A secret box that compelled the victim to open it but exploded before they could? A simple somnolence inhibitor that was easily removed with no lasting damage?

And it had been sent to a joke shop, of all places.

The more Draco thought about it, the more he had the strongest sensation that it wasn’t a curse at all; what if it was a fan gift gone wrong? What if it was someone who admired Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and wanted to gain the approval and interest of its proprietors? If one looked at it as a show of skill, rather than a malicious attack, it began to make a whole lot more sense. Which meant that the inside of the box would likely hold the sender’s calling card. They probably hadn’t even known that the spell had gone off so poorly; Ron’s hospitalisation had been kept as quiet as possible. The sender had probably re-sent the package simply because they’d never heard back.

But intention aside, time was of the essence, because it was clear their sender was only getting more invested. And with such unpredictable, amateur magic, who knew what the next parcel would do? It was probably some pimple-faced fifteen-year-old wanting the attention of the Saviour and his friends, and the longer he was ignored the more desperate he could become.

He leapt to his feet, steadying himself against the wall, and hunted for a piece of parchment. He had to tell Potter. There was no guarantee that he would approve of Draco’s plan, but since it involved leaping headfirst into danger on the slim chance that it would save them time, Draco had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t object too strongly.

It would mean both he and Potter had to give up the chance to re-engage with their lost memories, passing up the opportunity to recall an experience that few wizards had the opportunity to see, but—much as he hated to admit it—there were more important things at stake.

And then, he and Potter could go their separate ways, and he could put this whole, sodding mess behind him.

He found a blank piece of parchment, penned a swift note, and sent it immediately. Then, feeling the effects of all that he had tried to pretend he hadn’t drunk, he went straight to bed.

*

The sound of violent hammering on his door the next morning sent him stumbling to answer before he could even think about a hangover potion. For the third time in as many days, he opened the door to Potter with the smell of alcohol wafting between them.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” he muttered, before he woke up a little more and remembered that he hated Potter.

He turned swiftly away, lest Potter think he wasn’t still furious with him, and walked into the kitchen in search of coffee and potions.

“I got your owl,” Potter said, still in that same tentative voice he had used last time they met. “Are you sure about this? It seems a bit… rushed.”

When Draco could no longer hear the sound of his own blood pumping through his skull, he turned back to face him. “It _is_ rushed,” he agreed. “Because we are running out of time. I’m nearly completely certain that the box presents no great danger to us, but the prospect of further packages, with even more non-Ministry-approved magic therein, does.”

“ _Nearly_ completely certain?” Potter repeated drily.

“Seventy percent.”

“Well then, I’m convinced.”

“Bite me.” Draco groaned and rubbed his temple. “Fine. Look. Would it make you feel better if we agreed to one more session, just to alleviate any doubts, and then we opened it straight after? If you promise you’re not going to resort to name calling, I’ll even let us do it now.”

Potter snorted, though his face turned quickly sombre once again. “Look, Malfoy, I really am sorry about yesterday. I don’t know how to explain it except things are kind of complicated right now, and I’m not expressing myself well, and I didn’t mean to lash out at you.”

“Noted,” Draco drawled. “May I shower first, or does the scent of old booze calm you?”

When he received only an eye roll in response, he walked off and engaged in the quickest shower known to man. He told himself that Potter would think his speed was because he was keen to get started. In reality, it was because every second he spent soaping up his naked body while Potter stood doing Merlin knows what in his living room was a second closer to him opening the door and asking Potter to join him, and that thought was sending him quietly and swiftly insane.

He realised his error, of course, the moment he finished and noticed that he hadn’t allowed himself time to bring clothing with him into the bathroom. Maintaining a dignified tilt of his chin, he wrapped a towel around his waist and opened the door. Through a cloud of dissipating steam, he saw Potter turn to him reflexively before freezing. If he had been holding something, Draco was quite certain he would have dropped it.

Potter’s eyes fell to Draco’s waist, where Draco could feel droplets of water sliding down his rapidly cooling torso, and he visibly swallowed. Draco allowed himself one small moment to imagine striding across the room, gripping Potter by the back of the neck and kissing him stupid. He could imagine the sounds Potter would make—the shocked gasp, the moan when Draco’s towel fell to the ground, the eager slide of their tongues together as they panted into each other’s mouths.

And then he turned away, because far more than Draco’s living room stood between them, and if Potter could hurt Draco this much without them even being together, he didn’t want to imagine what he could do if they were.

He thought he heard a sound behind him, a noise halfway between Potter clearing his throat and a quiet groan of undisguised want, but he steeled himself and disappeared to dress.

If he took a little bit longer than necessary so that his inconvenient erection had faded, it was no one’s business but his own.

When they were finally in front of the parcel again, potion in hand, Draco began to feel the first twinges of doubt. Last night he had been… not in the most coherent frame of mind. What if it truly was a dangerous curse? What if he had doomed the two of them with his hairbrained, wannabe-Gryffindor plan?

“Let’s just see how it goes this time,” Potter said, sounding as hesitant as Draco felt. “And we’ll make a decision when we come back.”

“Right,” Draco said, and then, before he could change his mind, he drank the potions.

It was pure coincidence that he looked at Potter just before the room faded away. There was no noise to alert him, no sensation of being watched, just a chance turn of the head for no reason at all. As their eyes met, Draco was thrown by the depth of longing he saw there, the way that Potter’s eyes seemed to hold sadness and fear and want with the same fierceness that they used to hold nerve and fortitude.

Draco had a single moment to think that he could look into those eyes forever before they disappeared and the world went black.

*

“Draco.”

He heard his name, but he didn’t recognise the voice that said it. It sounded like Potter, but all the roughness and grit were gone from his tone, and besides, Potter didn’t call him Draco.

Then, the memories began to filter in: the horcrux; Potter becoming an Unspeakable; Potter spinning him around and around while the two of them laughed in delight before pulling him closer, his eyes dark with heat.

His journal.

Draco’s eyes snapped open and he sat up to regard Potter, who was sitting several feet away from him and looking as breathless as if he’d just run a marathon. Neither of them spoke.

“We’ve really fucked this up,” Potter said finally, and Draco laughed, though it sounded more like a sob.

“I don’t care about my bloody journal,” Draco said in a rush, before clutching his head in confusion. “How is this even possible? Not even twenty-four hours ago, I remember feeling such complete and utter betrayal at what you revealed to me, and yet, only a day before _that_ I was—” he hesitated. “Moved, I suppose. A little betrayed, sure, but mostly touched and horrified that you had to go through that and—” he broke off and turned sharply to Potter. “You are _terrible_ at communication. How do you even function?”

“Me?” Potter asked, incredulous. “You won’t even let me try to explain what I meant! I had one moment of weakness where I lashed out, which is hardly unusual for us, and—”

“One?” Draco barked a laugh. “You’ve been nothing _but_ moments of weakness since this whole thing started. I’m beginning to think you’re just one big limp noodle.”

“It’s hardly my fault.”

“Whose is it, then? Your cat’s?”

“I don’t have a cat, Draco.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Clearly, I’m being facetious. And why are you calling me ‘Draco’ all of a sudden? Have you had an aneurysm?”

Potter made a noise similar to a dying chicken and tried to explain himself using several words simultaneously.

Finally, he cleared his throat and slowed down. “I am calling you ‘Draco’,” he said with affected care, “because it seems ridiculous, after everything that has happened, to keep calling you ‘Malfoy’, don’t you think?”

_After everything that has happened_. Was Potter acknowledging that there was something between the two of them? Or did he have some kind of warped sense of work-place bonding?

The room suddenly lurched, and Potter’s hand jumped to his chest where he kept the anchor amulet. Draco held his breath as Potter closed his eyes and repeated a quiet incantation under his breath. Slowly, the ground grew steady again.

“We can’t keep on like this,” Draco said slowly. “Not out there, but certainly not in here—we’re going to get ourselves killed.”

The amulet twirled in Potter’s fingers, catching the light. It was such a gentle illumination here, in this room, and Draco realise with a sudden startled clarity that he had remembered bits of it last night; namely, the way that Potter’s eyes looked when they watched him.

“Let’s get to work, then. Get it over with.”

Draco nodded, removing his toolkit from his front pocket. He selected a pot of blue dust and took it over to wall he had been working on.

“We’re not far from the end,” he said. “I’d say there are only one or two more mechanisms left. No need to open the box after all, thank Merlin, because I was having second thoughts.”

He blew the dust into the wall and watched as a complex line of gears lit up with a gently pulsating blue light. With a wave of his wand, the echo of the mechanisms they’d already discovered began to glow softly, so that the light reflected back on them was a curious mix of blue, purple, green, and pink, shimmering softly like sunlight bouncing off water.

“That’s most of the wall,” Potter breathed, a faint smile on his lips.

While Draco cast the diagnostics, Potter grabbed a pot of white, iridescent dust and brought it over to one of the remaining cogs that weren’t illuminated. The last of the mechanism around them began to glow, eclipsing the other colours in a light that seemed to make the very air around them shimmer.

Draco drew in a breath, awed not just by the fact that they were about to find out exactly what the curse did, but by the simple beauty of the sight before him.

“And to think, you were suggesting we just charge ahead without any more research,” Potter said with a faint grin. “How disgustingly Gryffindor of you.”

Draco smiled weakly, too caught up on how easily he might have lost this, and he didn’t just mean identifying the curse. In fact, he wasn’t sure he meant the curse at all. He thought that the way Potter wouldn’t look directly at him might show he wasn’t alone in his thoughts.

“Let’s find out what it does,” Draco said, waving his wand.

Instantly, he knew something was wrong. The room began to shudder, and Potter’s alarmed look of confusion told him it had nothing to do with the anchor.

“What’s happening?” Potter asked, trying to steady the room with his amulet; it didn’t work.

“I don’t know,” Draco snapped.

He closed his eyes and focused on the spell. The final two mechanisms appeared to be linked, but they weren’t from any branch of curse magic Draco knew. It didn’t make sense, and not just because it was unknown. The simplest of Draco’s diagnostic spells searched for purpose and intent. The spell returned different colours according to the nature of the curse’s will—blue for pain, pink for control, orange for destruction—but he just kept getting green.

Green didn’t identify intent; it meant the curse’s will was done. It was as if they were in the throes of the curse itself, which was impossible because they were _inside_ the curse, and the cursed item was perfectly untouched under all Draco’s wards—how could they possibly be affected by it?

One thing Draco did know was that their time was running out, and if the curse managed to properly identify them as intruders, it would all be over.

“It knows we’re here,” he said. “We have to get out.”

Potter stared at him, his mouth gaping. “You have to write a message,” he said finally. “If we wake up and there’s no record of what’s happened here, we’re going to open the box.”

Draco felt sick. He scrambled for the notebook.

“I’ll tell us not to do anything,” he said. “I think— I don’t know— I think I can dismantle its defences at least. Then maybe we can see what the hell is going on that’s making it think it’s currently exploding.”

He fumbled in his pockets, unable to find his pen.

“It thinks it’s exploding?” Potter asked, incredulous.

“Yes, no, I don’t know,” Draco snapped, dropping his hands to his trouser pockets. “Where the fuck is my fucking pen?!”

His hands stilled and he felt the blood drain from his face. He turned to Potter and watched as understanding crossed his features.

In a deathly calm voice, Potter asked, “You didn’t bring a pen, did you?”

Draco shook his head. “It would seem I was in a rush and forgot.” The world seemed to slow around them, his voice sounding distant and faint.

“There’s an escape button,” Potter said ruefully, looking at the amulet. “I can wake us up.”

“But we won’t know what happened in here.”

The ground began to shake, the wooden floor cracking and tearing beneath them.

“Surely, we’re smart enough to figure out that leaving no notes at all is a bit strange,” Potter gave a bitter smile. “And I mean, I’ll have activated the amulet. Surely we’ll realise you forgot a pen and something bad has happened.”

“Surely,” Draco echoed, thinking of all the petty arguments they had had, how volatile they both were, and all the ways that they refused to listen to the most reasonable of conversations.

Their eyes met, and Draco felt the cold, icy fingers of dread creeping up his chest as he realised there was a good possibility that, even if they survived whatever the curse did, he and Potter would never remember this.

Potter gave a weak laugh. “How likely is it, do you think, that we might be as willing to actually listen to each other out there as we were in here?”

Draco didn’t answer.

Potter made a strangled sound at the back of his throat, and then in two steps he crossed the distance between them and kissed him.

The rumbling was growing louder, but Draco shoved it aside as he pulled Potter closer, desperate to taste and feel as much of him as he possibly could in this moment, before everything fell apart. He had thought Potter would feel rough against him—all the roughness of motorbike leather and the gravel of his voice had given him the impression of someone who was all harsh edges, like he wouldn’t be able to hold onto him too long without getting cut. But apart from his stubble, Potter was smooth, so smooth, and he moulded instantly to Draco like he couldn’t get enough of him.

Draco ran his hands through Potter’s hair, moaning helplessly against his lips as their kiss deepened, each frantically trying to leave their mark on the other, knowing with horrible certainty that this was it, all they’d ever get. It wasn’t fair. The last few days felt like weeks, and Draco had wasted them all. He’d wanted to know more about this strange, bitter version of the boy he’d known, but he hadn’t listened when Potter was practically screaming it to him. His empty flat, his stilted friendships, and the mystery that had drawn Draco back into his life what felt like a lifetime ago—Draco was only now beginning to understand what it all meant, and he was just going to walk away without any clue what he was losing.

The room gave a violent lurch and they broke apart.

“We have to go,” Draco said quietly.

Potter nodded, clasping the amulet and muttering a quiet incantation.

Just as the room began to fade, Potter leaned back in, their lips meeting in a gentle kiss that lingered a moment after everything else disappeared. Draco tried with everything in him to hang onto the memory, but after a few moments more, it faded too.

*

This time, when Draco woke up on the floor of his workroom, he felt hollow and wrung out.

“What time is it?” he asked, his mouth dry as paper.

Potter checked his watch. “We were in there less than twenty minutes,” he said, confused. “I must have pulled us out early. Check your notes—what happened?”

Draco pulled out his notebook and opened it up, but the only notes he’d made were from last time.

“There’s nothing here.” He held up the book, rifling through the pages in case he’d written elsewhere.

They both looked over at the box, but none of the wards had broken, and none of the diagnostics indicated anything had changed.

“I guess it must have been too much to finish in one sitting?” Potter suggested, looking unconvinced.

“I would have left a note,” Draco said, shaking his head slowly.

“Could something have gone wrong?”

Draco grimaced. “Surely, I would have left a note then too. Why would I just leave it for us to guess?”

As he glanced up at Potter, he was struck with an overwhelming surge of longing. Potter looked different somehow. Draco’s eyes were drawn to the smooth planes of his face, and he thought he almost knew how they would feel under his fingertips.

“Something isn’t right,” he said, feeling it deep in his bones.

“Maybe you forgot a pen?” Potter suggested.

Draco stared at him, open-mouthed. “You really don’t think very highly of me, do you?”

“I forget pens all the time.” Potter held up his hands in defence. “It’s not a bad thing.”

“You think I broke us out of an important trance, two hours early, because I forgot a pen.” Draco couldn’t believe it.

Potter raised one eyebrow. “So, you can insult the way I live, but I can’t ask a simple question?”

“You’re as rich as I am, yet you live like a pauper,” Draco snapped. “Forgive me for questioning your sanity.”

Potter’s lips pressed tight with rage. “You’re a such a spoiled brat—why am I even surprised that your go-to assumption is that I must be insane?” He drew finger quotes in the air as he said the word, glaring at Draco like he was scum. “Have you ever thought to ask?”

Draco scoffed. “I’ve asked twice now! You’re refusing to answer because if you actually told me then you wouldn’t get to brood and claim the moral high ground.”

They were interrupted by a knocking at the door.

“That’ll be George and Morgan,” Potter said, leaving the workroom to go open the front door, as if he owned the place. “I asked them here so that if something went wrong when we opened the box, they could get help.”

After an uncomfortable greeting where Draco tried his best to look as though he hadn’t been five minutes away from strangling their honorary brother, the four of them went back into the workroom.

“So, are we opening it or not?” George asked, looking back and forth between them with no small amount of apprehension.

“Well, I think the likelihood of us holding a stable trance is slim to none at this time,” Draco said stiffly. “And since time is of the essence, I fail to see that we have another choice.”

Potter hesitated, but finally nodded. “I’d like to go back in and work out what happened, but we can’t,” he agreed reluctantly.

“Finally acknowledging your dangerous volatility, then? Shall I sign you up for Alcoholics Anonymous next?” Draco smirked.

Potter ignored him. “We went in to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. Then, we came out early, and didn’t leave any important notes to ourselves. Logically, it was probably fine.”

“Well there’s a resounding show of conviction,” Draco muttered. “I’m perfectly happy to risk my life now.”

Nonetheless, he was forced to agree. They had to do something, and the available options seemed fewer each time.

“Right,” Draco said, louder this time. “Potter, shield the civilians and protect the innocent, or whatever it is you do. I’m opening the box.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?” Draco paused, halfway across the room, and stared at him.

“You’re the Curse Breaker,” Potter said slowly, as if he were talking to a young child. “If something happens to you and this gets out of hand, we might not be able to solve it. I’ll do it.”

For a moment, Draco was flattered. Then, the rest of Potter’s words sank in.

“Absolutely not, you complete pillock. We need access to your stupid archives in case this thing is worse than we thought. If you go and die on us, I’ll have to put in an application, and then you’ll be wasting my time even in death—I don’t think I could stand the gall.”

“Is this a game to you, Malfoy?” Potter snarled, and Draco found himself sneering straight back, all professionalism thrown to the wind.

“If it is, you’re losing,” he spat, distantly acknowledging that it didn’t make a whole lot of sense and just going with it anyway.

“I’ll open it.” George’s voice was firm and a little irritated. “Honestly, I’m amazed you two didn’t blow yourselves up inside that thing. It’s a miracle it’s even still here.”

“George, I can’t let you—” Potter began, voice quiet and apologetic.

“It was addressed to me, and I’m opening it. Now, do what you do best, Harry, and make sure no one dies.”

An expression crossed Potter’s face very fast, full of guilt, sorrow, anger, and regret. Draco could do nothing about it—not that he knew what he would have done anyway—because George had crossed the room and lifted the lid of the box.

Draco slammed shields down around the four of them while Potter sent a flurry of unknown charms settling around George. For a moment, the room shimmered with an iridescent white light. It was beautiful, filling Draco with a sense of peace and longing. Without knowing why, he began to walk towards the box. He could feel Potter beside him, moving as if in a trance, while a distant part of him noticed that Morgan had frozen very still.

Then there was a loud crack, like Apparition mixed with a car crash, and both George and the box disappeared.

The sensation of peace disappeared, and Draco was filled with the cold horror of knowing he had made an irreversible mistake.

“George!” Potter yelled, running to the centre of the red circle and falling to his knees, scrabbling around across the floorboards as if he would find George hidden in the wood.

His voice was broken, catching on the syllables like a sob, and out of nowhere Draco was bombarded with long-repressed memories of the Battle of Hogwarts where—he found out later—Potter had chosen to die, and had then come back only to find it still hadn’t been enough to save everyone. He felt a tearing sort of pain in his chest, and he staggered forward to cast spells over the circle, trying to figure out what had happened, where they’d gone wrong.

He heard a noise behind him and turned on reflex, but Morgan was still standing exactly where she had before, a strange expression—equal parts fear and determination—on her face. For a single, passing moment, her features seemed to transform in front of him. The graceful lines of her face grew sharper, stranger, more ethereal. Her eyes, when they turned to Draco, were darker than before, and they seemed to reflect an awful sort of knowledge within them, like they were older than the earth itself.

“I have to go,” she said, and it was like listening to an icy stream pouring down the side of a mountain.

“Holy hell,” Draco breathed, and then his body kicked into action, flinging out his wand towards Morgan so that jet-black ropes suddenly bound her where she stood without him having to even think it.

Potter turned to him in horror, but then his eyes fell on Morgan and Draco knew he’d seen it too. He staggered to his feet but seemed to lose all momentum as he stood there, just staring at her.

“What are you?” Draco asked, hearing clearly both the awe and fear in his voice, unable to mask it.

She smiled sadly. “Sorry, Harry, Draco. I have to go. I know where they’ve taken him, and only I can get him back.”

And then, she disappeared.


	4. Chapter Four

At eleven o’clock that night, when Potter was practically passed out in a pile of research on Draco’s couch, Draco realised that Stonehenge was a clue.

After that, it was a simple slide from Stonehenge to the long-speculated mythological gateways to ethereal, strange features… to Fair Folk, and at that point Draco decided it was about time he retrieved the key to his liquor cabinet from behind the armoire.

He brought a bottle of vodka over to the couch and used it to wake Potter by way of knocking it into his ribs.

“Ow!” Potter burst out, sitting up and rubbing his chest. “What the fuck, Malfoy?”

“It’s the Fair Folk,” Draco said dismally and poured them both a glass.

“The—” Potter trailed off, took the glass, drained it, and tried again. “The Fair Folk? Like, fairies? I thought they were a myth.”

“They are.” Then Draco grinned. “Do you mean we’ve really stumbled on something the Unspeakables aren’t aware of? Be still my beating heart.”

“I’ll check the records, but I think so,” Potter agreed.

They fell into a strangely relaxed silence, both staring maudlin into their glasses. Mutual failure worked wonders for unity, sometimes.

“We’ll have to disarm the second box,” Draco said finally. “It’s our only clue. It shouldn’t be too hard, using our notes—we can just apply the knowledge to the new curse and get back to where we were in a matter of minutes.”

“It’s a shame we won’t ever get our memories back,” Potter said, taking another large gulp. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance that the identification spell will just think it’s the same box and pick up where it left off? Since it’s the same type of curse?”

Draco shook his head. “It’s the same _type_ of curse, but it’s still a different curse, just like you and I are both human but different. Unless we can complete the original identification spell, our memories are gone. I’ll have to set entirely new wards and change over the Pensieve.” He shrugged. “But the curses should look the same at their core, so we’ll still see what it looks like, and once we disarm this one, it will be exactly as if we had regained our memories. I doubt anything particularly important happened during the last few days that we didn’t record.”

A slight frown marred Potter’s features, and Draco found himself agreeing. There was something just out of reach, something that made him wish he could trade all the gold in Gringotts for just one memory from the spell. But, it was impossible—the original curse was gone before they could take it apart, and any chance of regaining their memories had gone with it.

Draco caught sight of his reflection in the mirror above the sideboard. He looked far thinner than he remembered, eyes heavy with tiredness but brimming with a restless fury. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep, but he knew it was far too dangerous to attempt anything tonight.

Then, something caught his eye. A faint, red mark on his neck that he was certain hadn’t been there before. He stood up and went to investigate, his eyes widening in shock as he realised what it was.

“Potter,” he said, his voice coming out strangled.

Potter’s head snapped up. “What? What is it?”

“No, it’s—” Draco broke off and swallowed. “I have a hickey.”

A dark expression crossed Potter’s features before he looked away. “Congratulations? Why the fuck do I care?”

“You don’t understand,” Draco said in painfully polite tones. “I didn’t have a hickey when I woke up this morning—I’ve had no occasion to _get_ one in an embarrassingly long time. The only possible way that I could have this is if something happened in the last twelve hours and I _forgot_.”

His eyes met Potter’s in the mirror as he said that last word, and he immediately saw both understanding and surprise reflected there.

“You mean…” Potter said slowly.

“I mean.” Draco agreed with a speaking look.

Potter stood and crossed the room, standing a careful distance from Draco. His eyes were wide and skittish.

“I hardly think, given the urgency of current events, that we would have wasted our precious time within the trance on… this… unless there is something grossly important that we have overlooked,” Draco said, refusing to look at Potter.

“We’re missing something,” Potter agreed.

“We need our memories back.”

It was a horrible, useless circle. They couldn’t get their memories back without the original cursed item, fully intact. They couldn’t get the item without their memories.

“I have an idea,” Potter said quietly.

There was something in his voice that made Draco swallow whatever quip he might have made and just listen.

“There’s a way you can…” he continued, “I don’t know how to describe it—make an echo of an object. So long as you have a residual piece left behind, you can create a kind of pair.”

Draco’s mind was thrown back to sixth year and the Vanishing Cabinet. He knew the kind of pair Potter meant. He hadn’t needed to create an echo from scratch, but he had used one to enhance the attraction of the second cabinet so that they both reverted to using the connection between them instead of Vanishing things to unknown places. He’d made it brighter, stronger, faster.

If they took the second box and fused it with the psychical inhibitor from the original, they could overlay it with an echo so that the spell was just confused enough by the familiarity to let them in like nothing had changed. It would be like using a carbon copy.

He turned to Potter and saw him already holding the inhibitor in his palm, a fierce determination in his eyes.

“Potter,” Draco drawled, a slow smile spreading over his features. “I do believe it’s time we caught some Fair Folk.”

They decided that Potter should be the one to create the echo, since he seemed to have the most experience with it for reasons unknown to Draco. He didn’t really care; it suited him. He was far too distracted running his fingers across the mark on his neck to be able to think about spells and echoes and cursed items that never did what you bloody wanted them to.

He kept catching Potter’s eyes flicking towards it as well, but neither of them said anything out loud. There was so much between them, Draco didn’t even know where to begin. He knew that things had been tense between them over the last few days, and not only out of anger, but the very idea that they had somehow acted on that filled him with confusion. It felt like it belonged to another person, another Draco—one who wasn’t so fantastically skilled at building walls and terribly inept at tearing them down.

Finally, the shimmering green light settled over the box and Potter stepped back. For several moments, it sat in the centre of the circle, and neither of them dared to breathe until finally, with a little movement like a sigh, it sank into the wood and disappeared.

“I think it worked,” Potter said, his eyes shadowed as though he was lost in some awful memory.

Draco stared at him, unable to think what to say or to guess what might have happened to make Potter look like this. He gave up without trying and got to his feet. “Shall we?”

Potter nodded.

*

For several alarming moments, the strange room around them seemed unfamiliar. Draco stared at Potter, seeing only confusion on his features as he looked around at the walls that appeared to contain the contents of every clock known to wizard-kind.

And then, it hit him, flooding back in an awful, painful rush, and before he knew it he was in Potter’s arms, his fingers twisted violently in Potter’s hair while their lips met furiously, the two of them pushing and shoving at each other like they hadn’t yet decided if they were fucking or fighting. Possibly, they hadn’t, and it wasn’t until Draco’s shirt was pushed back off his shoulders and Potter’s mouth dropped back to his neck, to that faint mark, that he was certain at all.

Suddenly, Potter drew back, a look of pure irritation on his face. “You _did_ forget a fucking pen!”

“Well maybe if you’d asked nicely instead of accusing me of possessing exactly zero brain cells, we would have realised that a whole lot sooner,” Draco retorted after he’d caught his breath.

“I swear, Malfoy, you’d take offence at a brick wall.”

“Now, now, Potter, don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re as smart as at least two brick walls.”

It was easy as breathing, fighting with Potter. He’d thought this must belong to someone else, to a different Draco, and the knowledge that it didn’t somehow terrified him. The thought that it had only taken one or two moments to change everything—that those moments could so easily have been overlooked—made him feel somehow small and a bit lost, but then Potter’s mouth drifted back to his, slow and languorous, and he somehow didn’t care at all.

“If I fuck you here,” Potter murmured conversationally, “what do you think our bodies are doing back in your workroom?”

“Writhing in paradoxical jealousy?” Draco offered, dropping his hands to Potter’s jeans. “But maybe we shouldn’t do this. There are more important things. And the anchor!” He was quite impressed with himself that his sentences were coming out with even an ounce of coherency. Ten points to him.

“Don’t worry about the anchor,” Potter growled, shoving Draco’s hands aside and undoing Draco’s fly in one smooth movement.

There was a moment when time seemed to slow down, when Potter was looking at him with an expression that Draco finally acknowledged was familiar—was the way Potter often looked at him when he was drunk or a little bit tired or vulnerable for another reason altogether—and he thought to himself: they’re all Potter. He was a bit delirious and incredibly tired, but in that moment, it made sense. All these sides of Potter that he kept seeing, kept being confused—or sometimes turned on—by, they were all Potter, none of them more real than the other. It was just that, for some inexplicable reason, Draco was the only one who got to see them all.

Potter dropped to his knees, looking up at Draco with a wicked smirk that he had felt certain only existed in his own fantasies, and pulled Draco’s trousers slowly down his thighs. Draco was already hard, and he had to close his eyes when Potter stopped to just _look_ at him, terrified of finishing far too quickly. But it was even more overwhelming with his eyes shut—the sensation of soft lips closing over him, the firm hand circling him at the base, the slow slide of wetness coupled with gentle moaning that hitched whenever Draco couldn’t help but thrust forward.

He threaded his fingers through Potter’s hair and looked down into eyes that were dark and hooded. Holding him still, he began to pump slowly, rhythmically, until Potter’s eyes were closed in unfathomable ecstasy and he spilled over, crying out “Harry” just like he did in his most secret of fantasies.

He allowed himself to be pulled down to the floor, dropping to his knees, held up by a slow kiss and the sensation of strong hands sliding down and gripping his arse.

“Not here,” Draco protested faintly. “I want a bed for that.”

Potter pulled away with a laugh. “Sorry.”

He fell back into easy kisses, light and eager, until Draco was filled again with heat and pushed Potter back down on the ground so he could palm him more easily. They stayed like that for several moments, Potter moaning and pushing into his hand, the layers of fabric between them growing wet.

“Please,” he murmured, just when Draco wasn’t sure he could wait any longer.

With a triumphant grin, he straddled Potter’s thighs and undid his fly. He could feel Potter watching him and he made it as much of a show as he could: sliding his palms over Potter’s hips, peeling back the fabric, running his tongue in a slow slide from the base to the tip.

Potter groaned and pushed up into him, and Draco gave up the tease. He hollowed his cheeks and swirled his tongue, and all the while Potter’s hands ran over Draco’s hair, threading through and falling away like he was too scared to grip tightly. With a groan, Draco reached up and grabbed Potter’s wrist, shoving it roughly into his hair, and Potter grabbed hold so hard it hurt and came with a shout.

It was amazing the curse hadn’t noticed them—a testament to Potter’s strength and skill, to be sure, and Draco didn’t even have the energy to be annoyed.

“I think I know why the curse started to play up last time,” Draco said when he’d caught his breath.

“Mmm?” Potter asked, running a hand through his hair but continuing to lie back. “Why?”

Draco looked around at the strange walls, remembering all the times they’d commented on how odd it was that they’d appeared inside the curse rather than in front of it.

“Every other record of this spell had the wizard appearing in front of the curse. The fact that we were always inside it was the final clue,” Draco explained. “It told us the curse’s purpose, though we didn’t realise it. The whole thing was made to trap someone inside and then disappear—when it became aware of us last time, right at the start of the session, instead of going into an intruder-induced craze and eating us, it assumed it had succeeded. It was getting ready to take us away.”

Potter sat bolt upright. “If it started to leave, it might have left behind a clue as to where it was going.”

Draco caught his eyes. “Exactly.”

Potter began to mumble a number of charms under his breath, firing off tests across every inch of space he could reach, and Draco followed suit. Before long, a picture began to emerge. It wasn’t a map, like Draco had hoped, but he hadn’t really expected one.

“Did you study Ancient Runes?” Potter asked, leaning closer to inspect the shimmering symbol that was hovering in the air. “I didn’t, but I’ve looked into them since, and I don’t recognise that.”

“That’s because it’s not a rune,” Draco said quietly. His voice had taken on a faint, distant quality that he didn’t seem able to shake off. “There’s an old fairy tale—it has a few translations, but the most common one is called Sweetheart Roland. I won’t bore you with the details, but a witch sets out to murder her step-daughter, but the step-daughter foils her and runs away with her magic wand.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on the slowly rotating symbol that pulsed with a golden light.

“I had an illustrated version, you know. She and her sweetheart—the aforementioned—escape her by transforming themselves into all manner of things: a lake and a duck, a rose and a fiddler. It’s all very romantic and intense, and they defeat the witch, but her lover is ensnared by another and soon forgets her. The original translations skip over this part, but Pureblood memory is long.”

He suddenly longed for a cigarette; it had been years since he smoked.

“See, the witch’s wand was never hers in the first place. There are many stories that like to claim our power came from the Fair Folk, that the first wizards and witches were immortal, and when we turned our backs on them and ran off with the gift we had been given, they cursed us with mortality and left our world forever, retreating back beneath the hills and forests. In the fairy tale, the witch’s wand was one of the stolen, and when the Fair Folk realised it was in the hands of a weak child, they took their chance to regain it.”

He nodded at the symbol, lips twisting wryly.

“That symbol was etched into it as a kind of repellent to the Fae. They can’t pass through doors where it’s written, or hold objects that are etched with it, which is why the witch carved it into the wand when she stole it. They tricked the step-daughter into scratching it against her thorns while she was an enchanted rose and stole it then, condemning her to live out her days trapped there while her lover married someone else. Of course, the enchantment was broken and she won back her beloved Roland, but I’ll never forget the faces of the Fair Folk in the story as they taunted her and stole back the wand she’d tried to hide from them.”

Potter frowned, seeming unwilling to speak and break the strange spell that had descended over them. “So, this is some kind of fairy entrapment curse? It pulls the fairy inside and then makes sure they can’t escape?”

“It seems that way,” Draco acknowledged reluctantly.

“What do you think it means?”

Draco took a moment to be annoyed that he couldn’t even properly savour the fact that Potter was, for once, asking his advice instead of jumping to infuriatingly correct answers.

“I honestly don’t know, Potter,” Draco admitted. “Morgan made it sound as if it was the Fair Folk behind this curse, but why would they use symbols designed to trap and ensnare them?”

“It could have been meant for Morgan,” Potter suggested.

“Something doesn’t fit.” Draco trailed off.

The room was silent, filled only with the sound of gently whirring gears as they ticked steadily around.

Potter suddenly frowned and looked around the room. “Why would a curse that was bound to an ancient symbol manifest as something modern and mechanical?”

Draco’s eyes widened. “You think it’s been modified?” He lurched forward, hunting through the pockets of his toolkit for the magnifying glass he knew was there. “Then there’ll be a signature.”

Potter came to stand beside him, hand resting on Draco’s shoulder. It was warm and comforting, and he had to fight the urge to just close his eyes and lean into it. His fingers landed on the small piece of glass, and he took it out and whispered the charm over the top.

It floated up from his hand and hung, poised, in the centre of the room. Then, it gave a little shudder and descended into the furthest corner, to the one gear that hadn’t lit up in their diagnostic paths: the tiny gear that moved steadily around on its own. Draco leaned over and squinted into the glass; he could just make out a tiny name.

“Kalen O'Fearadhaigh?” He read out. “Ever heard of him?”

“I think Morgan’s surname is something like that,” Potter said slowly.

A sudden and disturbing thought hit Draco. “She said her brother likes to tinker.”

Potter’s eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t question it.

“Do you know where he lives?” Draco asked.

Potter shook his head, but there was a curious gleam in his eye. “But I can find out pretty quickly,” he said with a grin.

Draco couldn’t help smiling back. “Then let’s get out of here and get our memories back.”

The grin on Potter’s face faltered. “We still don’t have a pen.”

Draco felt the blood drain from his face. “Well, we’re not in quite the same rush now,” he said faintly. “I’m sure we can think of something.”

Potter’s eyes slid to his, and he took a step forward, wand raised. “I have an idea,” he said, cheeks slightly flushed. “It’s a… er… spell that…” he trailed off and gestured helplessly to Draco’s arm.

Slowly, Draco held it out and watched as Potter pushed up the sleeve and let his wand trail across Draco’s skin. Something that looked like syrupy ink dripped onto Draco’s skin, spelling out the words “Sweetheart Roland”. It tingled faintly in a nice sort of way.

“Potter,” he said with a frown, suddenly realising why the strange ink looked familiar. “Is that chocolate?”

Eyes remaining fixed on his work as he added a passable recreation of the symbol, he nodded.

“Why would you— _oh_.” Draco felt his cheeks heat as he realised exactly what the spell was for.

“Yeah,” Potter agreed, smirking a little even though his cheeks were still pink. “We should try it some time.”

Draco felt his stomach flutter pleasantly, and he bit back what he sure was an embarrassingly giddy smile.

Potter finished writing Kalen O'Fearadhaigh’s name on Draco’s arm, and then he stood back and retrieved the amulet from his shirt.

“Anything else I need to add?”

“If you wrote anything more, I’d have no room left for my skin,” Draco said drily.

“I see no problem with that,” Potter said, giving him a heated look that went straight to Draco’s cock.

“Right,” he said faintly. “Let’s get out of here then.”

*

“Why the fuck is my arm sticky?” Draco snapped, and then he saw the words printed onto his skin, smeared beneath his shirt cuffs.

He rolled them carefully back and stared in horror for several moments. He could feel Potter shaking with laughter beside him.

“I bet this was your idea,” he said savagely, then he sniffed, a familiar scent catching his attention. “Is that… is that chocolate? Potter, where the hell did you get chocolate from?”

Potter’s eyes widened and his face turned carefully blank. “Pays to be prepared,” he said, a touch weakly.

Draco shook his head. “You’re mad. I think we should commit you once this is all over.” He squinted at the words. “Kalen O’something—sounds Welsh, but it’s too smudged to make out. Actually, no I can read it. It’s Kalen O'Fearadhaigh. Followed by the profound words: Sweetheart Rolex. Roland.” He froze, recognising the next symbol just as the words clicked in his mind.

He looked over at the box, sitting innocently in the circle. “Right,” he said. “So that’s what it is.”

“Care to enlighten me?”

“Since this is written in your chicken scratch, I’m guessing I already have. Rather than waste time, let’s just get our memories back.”

They came to stand on either side of the box, on the rim of the protective circle.

“What do you need me to do?” Potter asked.

“At this point, just let me concentrate.”

Potter fell blessedly silent, and Draco closed his eyes, feeling out with his magic for the edges of the curse. He always preferred to do the actual disarming wandless—he could feel all the little changes in the curse that way, all the ways it tried to push back or get around his defences. His mind drifted back to the first time he’d tried this, when everything had been confusing and nonsensical. He remembered his irritation and panic, and it was a relief to feel it all drift away now. He’d seen this before, even if he couldn’t yet remember it. It was all there, just as predicted in his notes: a line of mercurial for the explosion, a hint of psychical to compel the victim closer—and there, something strange and unknown that the bizarre note on his arm told him would trap and ensnare one of the Fair Folk forever.

He wrapped his magic around each part, carefully separating them from each other, and with the precision of many years of training, dismantled them piece by piece. The final part—the entrapment spell—proved the most difficult of them all. In the end, all he could do was make it go dormant, but so long as no one reactivated it—and there would be few people alive who knew how—it wouldn’t be a danger to anyone.

Sensing the successful dismantlement of the curse, the wards and the Pensieve began to glow, and the last lingering remnants of the connection between himself, Potter, and the curse ignited. No longer in danger of being pulled in by the curse—no longer needing to disguise themselves as part of it—he felt a burning rush of emotion as the wards came down, tore away the barriers keeping them separate from everything that happened inside the trance, and returned his memories to him.

He stumbled and felt warm, strong hands steady him. Potter had crossed through the circle and was holding onto him, his full weight falling forward into Draco’s chest as if he could barely hold himself up.

“Fuck,” Draco breathed, feeling the conflicting rush of memories slotting back into place.

It felt different to how it felt in the dream state—sharper, almost painful. He opened his mouth to say something, but found himself choking a little, unable to speak.

In the end, he just dropped his head down onto Potter’s shoulder and held him close.

After a long, long time, Potter lifted his head. He reached out and picked up the box from the table, turning it over in his hands and studying it.

“We’d better find this Kalen O'Fearadhaigh then,” he said after a moment, slipping the box into his jacket pocket.

“Can we get help from the Aurors?” Draco wasn’t sure how they could possibly find him otherwise.

To his surprise, Potter grinned.

“No need. Unspeakable, remember? Uninhibited access to Ministry records.”

With that, the mystery of how Potter had remained so silent for the last ten minutes was revealed as his Patronus scampered back into the room, whispered something into his ear, and disappeared. Then, he caught Draco around the middle and Apparated them straight to Kalen O'Fearadhaigh’s address.

*

Draco didn’t recognise the area they landed in. Even if he could have, the snow was falling too thickly for him to read the street sign. They were surrounded by neat townhouses, a little run down, but certainly not dilapidated. Brightly coloured lights twinkled softly from fenceposts and roofs, making their path a little easier to see in the weak moonlight.

Potter opened the gate, which creaked quietly, and they walked up the path.

“The light is on upstairs,” Draco whispered. “And I can see movement.”

After sweeping his hand in a wide arc, which seemed to Draco as though it did nothing but send faint sparkles floating up into the sky, Potter slowly turned the handle and opened the door.

“There’s no one downstairs,” Potter said, and Draco noticed his hand still glowed with a soft, golden light.

Bloody Unspeakables.

Draco shut the door carefully behind him and sealed it with a little spell he’d learned from his Aunt. No one was leaving until he said they could. Potter raised his eyebrows at him.

“You’ve got your way,” Draco hissed, lips curling into a sneer. “I’ve got mine.”

An indignant shriek from upstairs had them both turning and breaking into as quiet a run as they could manage.

“You’re being totally unreasonable!” Morgan’s voice reached their ears as she began to shout. “What do you think he’s going to think of you now? Going to welcome you into the family business with open arms, you think?”

Someone stuttered in reply, a strongly accented voice carrying into the hallway as they reached the landing and stopped by the open door.

“It’s not—It wasn’t—Oh Christ, I’ve ruined everything!”

Draco wrinkled his nose and turned to Potter, who looked just as confused.

“No, you bloody haven’t!” Morgan yelled back. “Just give me the box and I’ll let him out back home. I told you not to come near me, Christ, I knew it was going to end up like this somehow.”

“I can’t! He’ll—”

The words broke off as Potter, obviously having had enough, stepped around the corner and caught him in an Incarcerous with ropes that were a deep midnight blue. They wrapped around the startled boy in the corner—he looked about twenty years old, with a head of fiery red hair—and pulled tight.

The boy—Kalen, Draco presumed—gaped in horror, and then closed his eyes and froze. Draco glanced at Morgan, who was looking between them all in shock.

Kalen’s eyes snapped open. “I’m stuck!” he yelped. “I can’t get away! They’ve caught me, Morgan! Help!”

Potter grinned. “Works on Selkies; I figured it would work on fae as well.”

“Half-fae!” Morgan snapped, though her eyes had taken on an expression of fear. “How did you—?”

“Not the time,” Potter snapped. “Did you know about this?”

Draco knew with sudden certainty that he never wanted to be on the other side of Potter during an interrogation.

“No!” Morgan shot back. “Of course not!”

“You just said you knew this would happen!” Potter roared, his face lighting up with fury.

“I didn’t know specifically! Look, he’s just a kid.” She waved her arm in exasperation at Kalen. “He was trying to impress George, and now he’s scared. He’s an impulsive little brat, but he’s not a danger. Just let him go, please.”

“He put Ron in the hospital.”

“I know.” Her voice broke a little. “He won’t do it again.”

Draco pinched the bridge of his nose. “If he was trying to impress George by trapping him in a box, why is he suddenly afraid to let him go?” he snarled. “Wasn’t this the whole purpose of the exercise?”

“It wasn’t meant to go on so long!” Kalen whimpered. “It was meant to spit him straight back out, not bring him to me.”

“Why the psychical inhibitor then? Why the explosion?”

“It was just meant to be exciting—a big explosion—and then the inhibitor was part of the original design. I thought I weakened it so it just made you a bit sleepy and more likely to open the box, but it must have revived.”

Draco’s head hurt. He was just a kid; it was clear in every part of his body language that he’d had no idea what he was doing. It was familiar, and it made his heart ache.

“He’s telling the truth, Potter,” Draco muttered. “He’s in over his head.”

Potter’s eyes flicked to Draco’s, and whatever he saw there made him pause. After a moment, his shoulders slumped and he visibly deflated.

“Kalen, just open the box. You’re not in trouble.” Potter flicked his wand and the ropes disappeared.

Kalen froze still like a rabbit, and for a second Draco thought he might bolt. Then, he slowly reached over to the box that had fallen when the Incarcerous hit and opened it up.

George emerged and stumbled to his feet, looking around incredulously.

“Merlin’s saggy tes—”

“George!” Morgan interrupted, and he spun around to her with a grin.

“Morgan! My love! My one and only! I thought you were dead!”

He swept her into a crushing hug.

“Dead? Why would I be dead?”

“A broken heart, of course. How long was I gone? A year? A decade?”

Morgan glared at him. “Three hours.”

“Longest three hours of your life, I’m sure.” He pulled her into his chest and patted her hair consolingly.

His eyes fell on Potter and Draco, and they shared a grim look which removed all doubt from Draco’s mind that George wasn’t aware of the seriousness of the situation, even if he didn’t know the details.

“What happened?” he asked, and then Kalen shifted awkwardly and George’s eyes were drawn to the fifth person in the room.

They stared at one another for several moments, guilt written all across Kalen’s face. Before they could speak, a whirring sound filled the room. Draco looked over at Potter, and saw him staring at his pocket in alarm. Draco realised what was happening a second before a brilliant white light filled the room and everything disappeared.

*

“Not again,” George muttered, as Draco’s eyes slowly adjusted to the light.

They were in a dark room, lit by a soft, white glow from somewhere Draco couldn’t see. The walls were covered in thick black curtains. When Potter saw these, he stiffened, and Draco unconsciously reached out to run a hand along his back, though he was unsure what had happened.

“Sirius,” Potter muttered, cryptically, but that was all he would say.

“This is what it looks like inside?” Draco asked, still running his hand along Potter’s back but turning to George. “The first box must have triggered the dormant spell in the second—I should have thought of that.” He grimaced, silently cursing his own stupidity.

He noticed, then, that George’s expression had lost the casual humour from seconds ago. His mouth was pressed into a thin line, and when he looked around the room, his movements were stiff and jolted. It struck Draco that he had never before seen him afraid.

“It will change in a second,” George said, and before Draco could ask what he meant the curtains fluttered and the room turned to stone.

Draco felt a flood of fear course through him as he recognised Hogwarts on the night of the battle. Screams and explosions sounded from all around them, and on instinct he ducked just as a giant’s arm crashed through the window above his head.

The same terror that had filled him that night returned, wiping away all the years between that boy and the man he had become. He found himself searching for an exit, a way to get out of this horrible mess that he knew deep down was partially his fault, just like he knew he would never escape the guilt of it, no matter how many times he tried to make amends.

He saw Potter and Morgan and George and Kalen stumbling and grabbing a hold of the walls and each other to steady themselves, and he suddenly felt the weight of the space between them—all the things he couldn’t brush aside.

A brightly coloured head of hair caught his attention, and for a moment he thought Kalen had been hurt and was lying on the ground. Then he thought it was George.

Then the horror of the situation truly hit him, and he watched, numb, as George fell to his knees, hugged his dead twin, and sobbed.

Morgan and Potter rushed to him, holding him, telling him it was over, long over, but when George looked up and met Draco’s eyes, they were cold and empty. Nothing like this was ever over, and they all knew it.

Draco remembered the night at the Leaky, where he had finally known what it felt like to be a part of that strange Gryffindor camaraderie, and wondered if he would ever get that back.

Then, there was a fluttering in the corner of his eye, like fabric, and the scene changed. He closed his eyes and heard water dripping onto tiles. Darkness faded away as light filled the room, and he didn’t have to open his eyes to know where he was.

He felt again that overwhelming certainty that no one in the school knew how he felt, that he was alone, completely alone. He felt the cool grip of the sink beneath his fingers and thought about how he had never been offered a turning point, and even if one came now, it was too late. He had been led down this path from birth, and by the time he had realised how to think for himself it had been too late. No one had cared enough to question it, to think of a way to offer a child a solution that hadn’t meant disowning his family and everything he loved. No one had cared enough to try.

He heard a choked sob and opened his eyes to see Potter staring down at a ghostly image of Draco’s own prone body—he looked so young, lying there—covered in blood on the bathroom floor. The guilt and regret of a teenager looked strange on an adult’s face, but just as Draco’s shame and hurt still lingered, he knew that Potter’s would never be far from the surface either. Even after all these years, that pain was raw.

It was a strange sensation. It made him feel stronger, more certain of himself, just as he had done then even as he was breaking apart. With an objective clarity he could see the steps of his life that had led him here, and he knew that there was more to him than his past, just as he knew how few people would ever see it.

He thought it now, and he had thought it then. But of course, back then, that was when Potter had burst through and sliced him into pieces, proving everything that he had just been thinking.

Potter’s eyes lifted to his, and the anguish between them felt distant, like he was viewing it through a pane of glass. How were they going to get out of here? Did the curse show them their worst moments until they broke down under the pain and were no longer capable of fighting back?

The walls flickered black, and suddenly they were standing on a hill. It was the kind of night that was icy quiet, and as Draco’s eyes adjusted, the dark shapes of the giant rocks emerged. Morgan and Kalen walked slowly forward into the circle of stones, their faces upturned to the moon and their eyes reflecting midnight. Draco felt a chill run up his spine, and George staggered backwards, a hint of fear in his expression. Before now, Draco wasn’t sure he had truly believed Morgan and Kalen were half-fae, but he believed it now.

And then they were at the Burrow, the entire Weasley clan laughing and singing, and both Potter and George’s faces relaxed into the kind of easy familial affection that Draco didn’t understand. He felt the distance between them grow stronger, not just between him and Potter, but between Morgan and George as well, as if the curse was trying to not only break them apart on the inside, but to push them away from each other as well.

But it didn’t make sense. It wasn’t only showing their darkest memories but their happiest as well. Scene after scene flittered past: Draco as a child, laughing with his parents; Morgan and Kalen running through the forest; Potter opening presents at Christmas. It began to feel as though Draco couldn’t possibly exist with all these sides to him. How could he be strong when he had been so weak? How could he be at peace when his life was paved with such tragedy? And yet, there he was—there they all were—memory after memory, broken one moment and happy the next. It didn’t make sense, and it felt like it was tearing him apart.

Then, the Curse Breaker in him woke up and began to analyse. Drawn by something he couldn’t explain, he focused on Potter, watching only his face as the scenes around them changed. The expressions on Potter’s face moved as quickly as their surroundings, and with each passing second, he grew more agitated, more confused by all the conflicting memories. In some moments, he was almost unrecognisable, and in others Draco was drawn to him so powerfully he had to fight to remain still.

Draco remembered only a few days ago when he had thought Potter was hiding something, or a few weeks before that when he had thought simpering heroism was all Potter was capable of. He knew that wasn’t true now; he knew that Potter was complex and flawed, and that, somehow, it made Draco want him more. No matter the emotions he saw on Potter’s face now, he didn’t feel afraid or rejected or unsure—he just felt certain that this was the man he wanted. They didn’t always match, but nothing ever did.

The scene changed, showing Draco as he had been just the other month, laughing over dinner with Pansy and Blaise. He felt a flood of peace course through him, and the rising agitation of the curse began to fade as he accepted the ways he didn’t make sense and saw through clearly to what was there underneath. There was a power in that, in knowing that he was more than the sum of his parts.

He wondered if, when this was all over, he might get the chance to spend years with Potter, working to find the many ways they fitted together and the many ways they could overcome it when they didn’t.

“Potter,” he said quietly, ignoring their surroundings when the scene shifted again.

Potter turned to him, and as their eyes met, the harried irritation on his face suddenly melted away.

“Anchor us.”

Potter slowly nodded. Behind him, Draco could see a strange silver arch and a messy-haired man standing in front. The man’s eyes widened, but even as he cried out, Potter stayed looking at him, green eyes fixed to his.

He reached into his shirt and drew out the anchor. With a slow grinding sound, like sand caught in gears, the room returned to how it had been at the start.

Draco closed his eyes and focused. He could feel the curse working against them, trying to disorient them until all the parts of themselves had fallen away and were lost, no longer able to remember how they ever fitted together.

He honed in on the centre of the curse, grappling it with a brutish spell that he normally reserved for sluggish psychical curses that presented no danger of explosion. But sometimes, you really just needed to hit something.

He strode forward, pulled back the largest curtain, and slammed his fist straight into the wall. With a shattering like glass, the room crumpled away.

For a moment, it felt like they were floating. The world around them was full of shadows, and Draco realised with a sudden rush of euphoria that he was looking straight out into the Ether. Glittering dully in the dim light, broken gears floated upward, some still ticking faintly around, searching for their partner.

It felt, for a second, like something was watching them—an invisible eye scouring the darkness. But then, they were gone.

*

The first thing Draco noticed, when everything came back into focus, was the sound of carollers coming down the street. He wondered who the fuck would be singing carols in the middle of the night, and then he registered the light coming around the curtains—it was the middle of the day, and they had been stuck inside for hours.

He could see his own weariness reflected on all their faces, and he wanted to speak, to make sure Potter was all right, but he knew that this part wasn’t for him.

George eyed Kalen, one arm hooked around Morgan’s shoulder. His face was unreadable, which was surely not a good sign.

“What was the box meant to do?” he asked, his voice sounding harsh in the silence of the room.

Kalen cleared his throat, looked at his feet, and then forced himself to look up and meet George’s eye.

“It was meant to be a pocket world,” he said, lifting his chin. “I made it look like our, er—” his eyes darted to Morgan, but she just sighed and nodded. “Our grandmother’s,” he finished. “But I guess I shouldn’t have used the fairy boxes. The magic was too strong. It took over.”

George nodded slowly before tilting his head down to look at Morgan. “And you didn’t want me to meet your brother because you didn’t want me to know you’re fae?”

“Half-fae,” she said, but she didn’t sound angry anymore, only tired. “And yes. He’s not very good at keeping secrets.” She smiled wryly.

George stared at the ground, his eyes distant. He muttered something under his breath.

“What was that?” Morgan asked tentatively.

“A pocket world,” he repeated, looking up with a strange gleam in his eye. “That’s wicked.”

Kalen’s eyes widened and Potter looked suddenly like he was fighting the urge to laugh.

“I haven’t thought of anything like that since Fred was around,” George continued, stepping away from Morgan and gesticulating widely. “Do you think if we did away with the fairy boxes and based it on Undetectable Extension charms instead, it might hold better?”

Kalen nodded eagerly. “We could cross an Undetectable Extension charm with a Portkey—I’ve been working on something similar.”

Morgan made a faint sound in the back of her throat that sounded like a strangled scream.

“But,” Kalen hunched a little. “You’re not upset about the whole box thing?”

George waved a hand in the air before slinging his arm over Kalen’s shoulder and steering him away.

“Magical mishaps are a bit of a rite of passage with us—welcome to the family, little brother. Now, what if—”

Draco tuned them out as they started down the stairs. He turned back to Morgan, who was looking equal parts relieved and terrified.

“Would either of you like some tea?” she asked.

Draco opened his mouth to answer, but Potter was already firmly shaking his head.

“We’ve got to get back, Morgan. We’ll leave you to it. I’m glad you’re all safe.”

Then, before he knew it, they were Apparating back to Potter’s flat.

Back at Kalen’s house, Draco had felt like he could sleep for a thousand years, but now he was suddenly wide awake. Potter went into the kitchen and put the kettle on, and Draco tried to find a piece of furniture to sit on that didn’t look like it had once been a packing crate.

He decided the stool at the kitchen bench seemed safest and sat down.

“You got us out of there,” Potter said, just when Draco thought the silence was never going to end.

“You helped,” Draco admitted.

Potter huffed a laugh. “No,” he said firmly. “I didn’t know what to do.”

He seemed strangely fragile, hunched over the kettle, his back to Draco. It was yet another side to him that Draco hadn’t seen before. He wanted to get to know this side too, all of him, every part of Potter.

“When I looked at you, though,” Potter continued suddenly, standing straighter, “that’s when I knew. I feel whole when I’m with you.”

Draco stood up and came around the other side of the bench, running his hands across Potter’s back and around his waist so he could draw him close. Potter was just a little shorter than him, the perfect height for Draco to lean in and breathe gentle words into his ear, soft words that Draco had never known he had in him.

He felt Potter melt back against him, and then he was turning, and Draco was pushing him back against the bench and kissing him.

It occurred to Draco that this was the first time he had kissed Potter in reality, outside of the trance, and he wanted to savour it but he couldn’t seem to slow himself down. It was different out here. Potter’s stubble felt rough against his cheek, and they kept catching their hands in each other’s clothing, fumbling and eager whereas in the trance everything had been as smooth as a dream. It was better out here.

Potter pushed away from the bench and grabbed a hold of Draco’s white scarf, leading him into the bedroom. It was bizarre—he shouldn’t have the space to think of anything else—but even as he followed, hands running inside Potter’s shirt, mouth leaving a trail all across his neck and shoulder, he found himself noticing small details about the flat and thinking about how he was going to change them the second Potter gave him free reign.

The upturned crate that served as a coffee table was going to go—Draco was going to burn it. He was going to burn it and dance around it and laugh. Then he was going to eviscerate the moth-eaten curtains into tiny shreds. And after that, he was going to throw every piece of transfigured furniture into a huge pile in the middle of the road and hail the Knight Bus to run over it.

Then he was going to give Potter the flat he deserved. He was going to purchase light curtains for the windows and a big, cushy sofa for the living room. He was going to commission artwork for the walls and buy stupid Muggle appliances so that Potter wouldn’t have to use the same pot for every single meal.

Potter opened the door to the bedroom, and Draco took it all back—first, he was going to buy a bed. He was going to buy a king-sized four-poster bed with thousand thread count sheets and the softest duvet money could buy.

“Potter,” he said, spinning him around and pulling him into a bruising kiss. “I am going to _ _spoil_ _ you,” he whispered against his lips.

Potter’s eyes widened, confused and surprised, but there was a hint there of what Draco had known he was going to see: disbelief and hope—hope that he meant that much to someone. Draco kissed him again, soft and slow and full of promise.

Then, they fell back onto the worn sheets, and Draco let Potter take control.

The gentle kisses they had been trading gave way to something rougher as Potter began to take him apart. He pulled Draco’s shirt over his head without even bothering with the buttons and vanished his trousers with a wave of his wand. Then, he dropped his head to Draco’s neck, kissing and biting while Draco tried futilely to drag Potter’s leather jacket off.

Eventually, he gave a snarl of irritation and smacked Potter on the shoulder. Potter pulled back with a smirk and slowly dropped the jacket off his shoulders, throwing it onto the floor and pulling his tight, white shirt over his head in one smooth move.

Draco’s breath caught in his throat, and he was so fixated on the look in Potter’s eyes that he nearly missed the moment he pulled off his trousers. Then, his brain caught up with him and realised what he hadn’t noticed in the dream-state.

“You weren’t wearing underwear,” he said, his voice huskier than he meant it to be.

Potter gave him a wicked grin, and he nearly died.

With a flick of his hand, Potter summoned a jar of lube from the nightstand and slicked his fingers before slowly starting to work Draco open. He closed his eyes and tried not to embarrass himself, but before long he was gripping the headboard and writhing beneath Potter’s skilful hand.

He heard Potter give a soft laugh and withdraw his fingers, and then he could feel Potter’s cock pushing in. Strong hands gripped his ankles, massaging gently and pulling them up so they were braced firmly on the bed. He gasped as Potter lifted his hips, propping him up so that his arse rested on Potter’s thighs. It was a more intense angle, and when Potter started to move in a slow, controlled slide, his hands fell away from the headboard to cling to the sheets beneath him and he bit down on his lip to keep from crying out.

Potter’s chest was slowly turning flushed, and there was a small furrow between his brows as he tried to maintain a steady, controlled rhythm, but before long he propped himself back on his left hand, slid his right palm across Draco’s aching cock, and began to thrust properly.

“Fuck,” Draco breathed, pushing up into Potter’s hand.

Potter was groaning now, breathing unintelligible noises and panting as he thrust into Draco. His head dropped back, and he stopped teasing and gripped Draco’s cock, sliding his hand roughly up and down so that before long Draco was whimpering, begging him for more. The ancient bed creaked beneath them, and Draco half thought it might fall apart, but Potter didn’t seem to care as he suddenly sat up on his knees, grabbed Draco’s arse, and pulled him closer.

Draco’s hand fell to his cock, wanking himself as he watched Potter fuck him. He couldn’t look away from the heat in Potter’s eyes, the almost disbelieving lift of his eyebrows as he got closer, and then Draco couldn’t help it—he was coming, long strips painting his stomach while Potter closed his eyes and followed with a moan.

Potter dropped down beside him, pulling the threadbare duvet over them, and Draco decided, fuck it, the bed could go right now.

“Binky,” he murmured, snapping his fingers lazily.

A house-elf popped into existence beside the bed.

“Yes, Master Draco?” He bobbed on his toes, waiting for direction.

Potter yelped and scrambled backward. Draco waved his hand vaguely, his words failing him and leaving him with nothing but a woeful, defeated expression.

“Fix this,” he pleaded.

“Right away, Master Draco.”

The elf blinked, and with a sharp crack the bed disappeared. There was a brief moment where it felt like they were falling, and then there was another crack, and Draco sighed in relief at the familiar feeling of Egyptian cotton.

“Thank you, Binky,” he muttered, ignoring the faint squeak and pop that signalled the house elf’s departure, and pulled Potter close to him.

There was a brief struggle, like Potter was trying to find some reason to refuse the gift, on the grounds that he only deserved to sleep on nails or some other such rot, and then he felt him give in and just let Draco hold him.

“I like Earl Grey with breakfast,” Draco informed him, and then, just as he could feel Potter’s lips curving into a smile against his forehead, he fell asleep.

 


	5. Epilogue

Draco eyed the pile of presents on the dining table.

“Are we giving to charity this year?” he asked, bemused.

Harry emerged from the kitchen, his hair tousled and wet from the shower. The pale blue sweater Draco had picked out fit him perfectly, and Draco privately congratulated himself on getting Harry out of the leather jacket.

It was no good letting him wear it everywhere; Draco just kept wanting to bend him over and fuck him in it.

“No,” Harry said with a smile. “Those are for the Weasleys.”

“Merlin,” Draco breathed. “There are that many of them?”

“They just keep growing,” Harry said, the smile stretching into an enormous grin.

“Right, well, if they’re for your family, surely you have to wrap them, right?”

“Think again.”

Draco huffed, but looked around for the wrapping paper. He’d found a truly atrocious set in a bargain bin at Flourish and Blotts, and he couldn’t wait to show Harry. His eyes landed on the edge of a bright pink roll, tucked behind the Christmas tree, and he pounced.

“Behold,” he said, dropping the roll on the table with the air of one producing an ace, “the most hideous wrapping paper you’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Harry raised his eyebrows, taking in the magenta backing and the fifty hoola-hooping Santa Claus that he could see just from that small strip alone.

“Not bad,” he admitted, nodding. “Not bad at all, but does it beat this?”

He dropped three rolls of matching wrapping paper on the table, and Draco gasped. Set on a background of what could only be described as vomit-yellow, the paper was covered in tiny creatures that oozed slowly around each other, leaving little trails of grime behind them.

“Are they—?” he asked, too horrified to finish the sentence.

“Flobberworms,” Harry said proudly. “Wearing bells.”

“You commissioned it,” Draco insisted. “You must have.”

“Nope. Found it out the back of Flourish and Blotts. Mildred hadn’t put it out for sale because she thought it was too terrible to sell.”

“That’s cheating!”

Asking for help was definitely against the rules, Draco was sure of it. He’d have to write it down for next year.

Harry laughed and gestured to the paper. “Does it win?”

“It wins,” Draco agreed reluctantly, sweeping his hula-hooping Santa Claus off the table and onto the floor, where losers belonged.

They divided the presents and soon there were shreds of paper flying everywhere as they wrapped and taped and stacked. Draco managed to sneak eighteen pieces of tape onto Harry’s sweater, but then he realised Harry had somehow managed to wrap his belt buckle when he wasn’t looking, and he was forced to insist on a draw.

Harry grabbed hold of his wrist and pulled him into a kiss. “The trick is all in the levitation charm,” he said easily, brushing their lips together and running his hands up through Draco’s hair.

“We can’t be late,” Draco insisted, trying to step back but succeeding only in slipping his fingers beneath Harry’s waistband.

“We won’t be,” Harry promised, unbuttoning Draco’s shirt, slow and unhurried.

Then he raised his wand and ran it slowly along Draco’s neck and down his chest, the _want_ in his expression holding Draco captive. With a start, Draco realised there was something warm and wet on his chest, and he looked down just as Harry dropped his head and began to lick the chocolate away with slow, teasing kisses.

“Merlin,” Draco breathed. “We don’t have time.”

“We have time,” Harry insisted, dropping lower and gently laving a nipple. “I’m just going to suck you off. Won’t take long.”

He pushed Draco’s shirt back from his shoulders and rose up to bite down gently on his neck. Draco shook his head and pushed Harry back, fighting for control of his breath.

“Absolutely not,” he gasped. “I know you, Harry Potter: you’re a fucking tease.”

He dropped to his knees and reached for Harry’s belt. Harry’s head fell back and he moaned, grabbing hold of Draco’s hair and thrusting gently forward.

He took Harry in his mouth, sucking gently as he looked up, taking in the way Harry’s eyes fluttered closed in pleasure, his lips parting as he moaned. He smirked and took him in deeper, relishing the feeling of strong hands gripping his hair, just before Harry began to thrust into his mouth.

He suddenly remembered what it was like this time last year, wrapping presents alone, drunk, and wishing stupidly that Harry was there with him. He pulled back and stood up, ignoring Harry’s protest and spinning him around so that his hands were braced on the dining table.

Getting the message, Harry groaned and pushed back as Draco slicked his fingers with lube and slid them inside. Before long, he was panting and writhing, and Draco didn’t waste time lining up his cock and thrusting inside, slow and hard. He gripped Harry’s shirt beneath his hands and reached around, tugging at Harry’s cock in the same rhythm as his steady thrusts.

He didn’t know how many times they had done this now, exploring each other’s bodies and finding new ways to bring each other pleasure. The sensation of those first few times—the disbelief, the addictive high—had eventually faded, but it had been replaced by something better. He knew Harry’s body as well as he knew his own now, knew a hundred different ways to make him gasp and cry out in ecstasy, and every time he touched him, kissed him, held him, it felt like coming home.

Harry’s fingers dug into the wood of the table and he pushed back into Draco, whimpering as his cock began to pulse, and then he was coming. Draco pushed up his shirt and trailed kisses down his back, thrusting slowly as Harry came down from his orgasm, and then he couldn’t hold back any more. He gripped Harry’s hips and pushed in faster, harder, until he was spilling over too.

He pulled away, leaning back against the table to catch his breath. Harry straightened up and spelled himself clean.

“All right,” he said, shooting Draco a soft smile. “Let’s get ready for the wedding.”

“You arse,” Draco breathed, and then he straightened himself up and followed Harry into their bedroom.

*

Draco counted down the Portkey, and then they were sucked through to a glittering foyer.

Harry looked around in surprise, and the two of them shared a glance. They knew that Morgan’s family was taking care of the wedding, but they hadn’t known to expect this level of grandeur. Draco wondered if they were even still in Britain anymore.

A tall man with eyes a strange, deep red appeared to take their coats, and they handed them over without a word. Then, they were ushered towards two enormous double doors and into the wedding hall.

The first thing Draco noticed was that it looked nothing like any hall he had seen before. The room was lined in golden panels and the earthy floor felt like moss beneath their feet. Delicate wooden chairs, half-filled with chattering guests, lined the space, and when they looked up he was reminded for a moment of the Great Hall at Hogwarts. Except this enchanted ceiling didn’t reflect the sky—it was as though the ceiling was a giant pool of water, and they were underneath it, looking up. The light from a hundred chandeliers glittered strangely, illuminating silvery fish as they darted behind the glass.

Harry reached for his hand and held it, staring around them with awe, and Draco quite forgot the view in place of his boyfriend’s expression.

They heard a stifled sound of amazement and turned to see Ron and Hermione coming through the doors, an eager Rose tugging at her father’s hand.

“Look!” Rose whispered, her voice carrying through the hall. “Fish! In the sky!”

Ron caught sight of them and beamed, and the three of them hurried over.

“We nearly didn’t make it,” Ron said in a rush, a little sheepish. “I couldn’t find my robes.”

“I can’t believe you still only have one set of dress robes,” Hermione muttered, fond exasperation on her face. She turned back to Harry and Draco. “It’s good to see you both! It’s been nearly a month, hasn’t it? I’m so sorry. This little one has been sick, and we’ve all been a bit frantic, but we can’t let it get so long between visits again.”

Ron clapped Harry on the back before sweeping him into an impromptu hug. Harry’s eyes widened in alarm, but he returned the hug with enthusiasm, and when they pulled back they were both grinning like schoolboys.

“It’s good to see you,” Ron said, the words warm and sincere. “You too, Draco.”

Draco wasn’t sure he’d ever forget the moment Ron Weasley had taken him aside one night, nearly six months ago, and hugged him. They hadn’t needed words. Draco knew that Harry was smiling more lately, that Ron’s owls were being returned with long letters in reply. He knew that they were seeing more of each other than they had in years, and the stilted conversation he had witnessed in the hospital so long ago had become a distant memory. He had tried to tell Ron that he hadn’t done anything, but Ron had just told him to shut up and accept the gratitude, so he’d simply smiled and nodded. Maybe he did speak Gryffindor after all.

Rose led her parents off to see Molly and Arthur, leaving the two of them to take their seats. Harry nodded his head toward the best man, who was standing beside George in front of the alter.

“For a moment, I thought Fred was here,” he said quietly.

Draco watched Kalen and George laughing and joking together, and he was filled with a quiet sense of sadness for everything they had lost along the way, all of them. George caught his eye and smiled, waving to both he and Harry, and they waved back.

Harry’s leg was jiggling. Draco rested his hand on it, but he kept fidgeting even still.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be anxious,” Draco said quietly. “Do you think she won’t show?”

“No, she’ll be here,” Harry said. “It’s just—”

His hands fluttered to his jacket pocket and then down again. Draco felt the slow rise of anticipation spreading like warmth through him.

“I was going to wait,” Harry said slowly. “And I mean, it’s probably bad form to do it at a wedding. But I thought… when are we going to get another shot at being—” he looked around, his eyes catching on the tiny vines that curled around the pillars in the center, covered in strange flowers Draco had never seen before, “—wherever this is,” he finished.

Then, his eyes caught Draco’s, and Draco forgot how to breathe.

“Draco, will you marry me?” Harry asked, his fingers brushing against something in his inside pocket. “I have a ring, but… I don’t want to bring it out and have everyone hate me for proposing five minutes before the bride’s big moment.”

Draco felt the smile spreading across his face, slow and bright and impossible to contain. He reached slowly, deliberately to the inner pocket of his jacket, his fingers brushing against the tiny box hidden there. He watched as Harry’s eyes followed the movement and widened.

“Only if you’ll marry me,” he said quietly.

Harry’s face broke into a brilliant smile, and Draco leaned in to kiss him—a soft, chaste kiss that held the promise of many more.

Then, the wedding march began to play, and they turned around, pretending not to notice the tears in George’s eyes and the steady grip of Kalen’s hand on his shoulder. Draco felt Harry lean back into him, the steady rise and fall of his breath a soothing rhythm, as the doors opened and the hall was filled with light.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! You can show your appreciation for the author in a comment here or on [livejournal](https://hd-erised.livejournal.com/92252.html). ♥
> 
> This story is part of an on-going anonymous fest hosted at hd_erised@livejournal.com. The author will be revealed January 8th.


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